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Eo
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WONDERS OF THE BIRD WORLD
‘Str g *YIOY-2Y7-JO-YIOD, dy} JO voueq sy, 90ags}JUOt sy
WONDERS
OF THE
BIRD WORLD
BY
R. BOWDLER SHARPE, LL.D., F.L.S., ere.
LATE ASSISTANT-KEEPER, SUB-DEPARTMENT OF VERTEBRATA, BRITISH MUSEUM
With Illustrations by A, T. Elwes
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
443-449 FOURTH AVENUE
Printed in Great Britain
Dedicated
TO THE MANY THOUSANDS OF
MY COUNTRYMEN
AND COUNTRYWOMEN
WHO HAVE HONOURED MY LECTURES
WITH THEIR PRESENCE,
IN MEMORY OF THE MANY
HAPPY HOURS
SPENT IN
THEIR COMPANY
THISs little book contains the gist of my lectures on the
‘Curiositics of Bird Life,’ and kindred ornithological
subjects, as delivered by me in many parts of the United
Kingdom during the last ten years. I have often been
asked to publish my lectures, and had even commenced
a series of articles in ‘Good Words’ in 1895, under the
title of my best-known lecture, ‘ Curiosities of Bird Life.’
Since that date, however, this title has been used for
another volume; but I trust that even under the new
name which I have adopted for this work, many of my
friends will recognize the lectures which it was the delight
of my heart to give. Acting under medical advice, I may
no longer undertake the strain of speaking in public, and
I have, therefore, acceded to the request to publish the
substance of the lectures which I was in the habit of
delivering extempore. I have thus been able to give
x Preface
the authority for the statements which I made in public,
and I have tried to amplify the lectures, which of necessity
were more or less sketchy, by giving quotations from the
writings of those authors, whose experiences formed the
basis of my popular discourses.
I trust that there are many of my friends who will like
to have a memento of the evenings which were always a
source of great pleasure to me at the time, and I hope that
the lectures, now for the first time issued in book form, will
not be found to have lost their interest.
R. BOWDLER SHARPE.
Chiswick,
Oct. 12, 1898.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
WONDERFUL BIRDS
The Migration of a Gold-crest—Extinct Forms--The Archzop-
teryx—The Phororachus—-The Secretary Bird—The Seriama
—Ratite or Struthious Birds—Kiwis—Rheas—The Hoatzin .
CHAPTER II
WONDERFUL BIRDS (covtinued)
The Megapodes or Mound-builders—The Whale-headed Stork—
The Dodo and its kindred--Darters—F rigate Birds—Steamer-
Ducks— Penguins : : ; ‘
CHAPTER III
DECORATION IN BIRDS
The difference in the colouring of the sexes—Evolution of Species
—Sun-birds—Birds of Paradise—Lyre-birds— Motmots—
Puffins—The methods by which Birds acquire their plumage
CHAPTER IV
DECORATION IN BIRDS (continued)
Humming-birds— Difference in plumage between male and female
—The Racket-tailed Humming-bird—Bell-bird—Umbrella-
bird—Great Crested Grebe—Standard-winged Nightjar—
Huia : 2 : i F . : . : i :
PAGE
go
X11 Contents
CHAPTER V
THE PLAYING-GROUNDS OF BIRDS
PAGE
The meeting-places of the Birds of Paradise—The drawing-room
of the Argus Pheasant—The assemblies of the Cocks of the
Rock—Bower-builders— Gardeners : : E : . 117
CHAPTER VI
THE NESTING OF BIRDS
The Orders and Families of Birds, with their mode of nesting—
General remarks thereon—Guillemots and their eggs . . 146
CHAPTER VII
WONDERFUL NESTS
Birds which make no nest—The breeding of the Hornbills—
Hoopoes—Wood-Hoopoes and Cobras—Kingfishers—Mud-
nest builders—Hoatzins—Flamingoes—Swallows and Martins
—Oven-bird—Cemented nests—Edible Swiftlets—Crested
Swifts : : : : . 168
CHAPTER VIII
WONDERFUL NESTS (continued)
Stick-nest Builders—Hammer-heads—Fire- wood Gatherers—
Moss-nest Builders—Felt-nest Builders—Penduline Tits—
Rock Warblers—Purse-nest Builders—W eaver-birds—Grass-
Warblers — Humming-birds as Engineers — Sun-birds—
Salvin’s Swift—Assemblages of Albatrosses and Terns . 207
CHAPTER IX
THE COURTSHIP AND DANCING OF BIRDS
Superiority of the Female—Hemipodes— Painted Snipes—Phala-
ropes—Dancing of the Black Grouse—The “Spel” of the
Capercailie—The “ showing-off” of the Great Bustard—The
Bustard’s pouch—The Ruff’s display—The Crane’s per-
formance—The Rook in love—The dance of the Jacana—The
“ Bailador” in “song and dance” 229
Contents X11l
CHAPTER X
MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN
COLOUR OF BIRDS
Mimicry in insects—Curassow and Caracara—Drongo and Black
Cuckoo—Orioles and Helmeted Honey-eaters—Owl-Parrot—
Thick-knees—Pennant-winged Nightjar—Argentine Little
Bittern—Ptarmigan and Willow-Grouse
CHAPTER XI
PARASITIC BIRDS
The Koel and the Myna—The Common Cuckoo—Its Migration
and winter home—The similarity of its eggs to those of the
foster-parent—The ejection of the young of the latter—The
Cow-birds parasitic on each other—The nesting of the Ani
or Savana Cuckoo of Jamaica
CHAPTER XII
THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS
Scanty knowledge of the subject—Summary of observations by
Mr. W. Eagle Clarke—Gatke’s observations in Heligoland
—Migration in the Mississippi Valley—Migration in the
North Sea—Mr. Abel Chapman’s remarks on the flight of
birds
CHAPTER XIII
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
The Collecting of Specimens—The six Zoo-geographical Regions
of the World—Regions and Sub-Regions—Provinces and
Sub-Provinces—Sclater’s Scheme—Wallace’s Amendments—
Allen’s Scheme—Dr. H. O. Forbes and the Lost Continent
- 348
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
The Dance of the Cock-of-the-Rock . ; ‘ Frontispiece
The Gold-crest : ; ‘ ; ‘ ‘ I
Restoration of the 47 thnapnye. ; ; : : : 4
Head of the Archeopteryx . ; ; : : 2 : 4
Restoration of the Tooth-billed Di er. 5
Suggested restoration of Phororachus inflatis, Amen 7
The Secretary-Bird ; : : : : : 5 : Z 9
The Seriama : : : : ‘ : : : : SRT
The Kiwi : 15
The Common Rhea, with ae. mle bird 4 in charge ef the nestlings 17
Embryo of Hoatzin : F : : : : : 20
The Hoatzin , : ; : d : : : 2
Nestling of Hoatzin . : , . : ‘ d : 23
The Frigate Bird . 24
The Brush Turkey : 27
Section through the mound of re oce pinta in anaipurbed state 34
Mound of Lipoa ocellata 35
A bird’s-eye view of the mound of Fen as seen fam ‘aioe 36
Nestling Megapode 37
The Whale-headed Stork 41
The Dodo : . . . : : 5 ‘ seas
The African Darter. ; ; ; : : : : 2 si
Rookery of King-Penguins . : : : : : : alee 57,
The Splendid Sun-bird : ‘ ; : : - 62
Head of the male of Czzmyris has faa : 5 , : . 66
Head of the male of C. cyanolemus . : : : ; a B67
Head of the male of C. vetchenbachi . : : : = nO?
Head of C. odscurius, male and female . ; : ; : . 68
The Blue Bird of Paradise . i 3 : : : j eo UAT
List of Illustrations
King of Saxony’s Bird of Paradise
The Lyre-bird
A Motmot at work F
Ornaments of the Puffin’s bill -
The Poise of a Humming-bird
The Racket-tailed Humming-bird
Young Males of the Loddrgesza at play
The Ecuadorian Umbrella-bird
The Great Crested Grebe
The Standard-winged Nightjar
The Huia ‘
Ornamental markings i in the nesting of the Gouldian We eaver-
Finch :
The Satin Bower Spird ,
An Intruder ! :
Nest of the Ouesnslad Cat- bind
The Bower of the Satin Bower-bird
Double-arched Bower of the Spotted Bower- aril
The Regent-bird . ‘ : : :
Arbour of the Gardener Bower- bird
Arbour of the Gardener Bower-bird (Section)
Arbour of the Gardener Bower-bird (Ground Plan)
The Cuckoo as a parasite
Nest of the Tailor-bird
Nest of a Crested Swift
An Enemy! . : : 5 : , : F 3 2
“TI bring you fae thing this morning, sah. Rarity from
Denkera ”
A Baby Hornbill . s
Storming the stronghold of the Horntill
Dyak Basket
Hardwicke’s Pawrioware ,
The death of the Wood-Hoopoes
Nest of Zanysipiera sylvia
The Guacharo, or Oil-bird
Nest of the Guacharo
Nest of the Flamingo i ;
Nests of the Indian Fairy-Martin
Nests of the Edible Swiftlets
Oven-bird and its nest .
The Tree-Swift
I
NI
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wo em
NNNN
Am Ww WwW
XVI List of Illustrations
Weaver-birds’ Nests in Liberia
Nest of the Fire-wood Gatherer
Nest of the Yellow-throated Warbler
Nest of a Penduline Tit ‘
Nest of the Cape Penduline Tit, or Cotton: Bind
Nest of the Rock-Warbler
Nest of the Fan-tailed Warbler
Nests of Ste/lula calliope
Loaded nest of Oreotrochilus pike
The Courting of the male Red-necked plalarone by the female
Indian Hemipodes :
Female of the Painted Snipe
The Male Blackcock dancing
The Male of the Great Bustard slowing Eid
The Courting of the Ruff
Bailadors at play .
Female of Papilio merope
Female of Amauris niavius :
The Black Cuckoo near ne nest of the Trange ‘
The Black Drongo :
The Owl-Parrot .
The Stone-Plover, or Thick: ee
The Pennant-winged Nightjar
The Argentine Little Bittern
The Hoopoe
Little Bittern in reed- bed
Ptarmigan in summer plumage
Ptarmigan in autumn plumage
Ptarmigan in winter plumage
The Ani of Jamaica
Young Koel fed by Mynas
Young Cuckoo ejecting the nestlings a the “Meadow: Pipi ;
The Lighthouse on Heligoland
The Common Nightjar
Zoo-geographical Regions of the lave
The Giant Gallinule of New Zealand
NON
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OMNnDONW FO AW HO DWH HOON NWN &
NY NN HNN HN NN NN NN HNN NNN N WN WN
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Wonders of the Bird World
CHAPTER I
WONDERFUL BIRDS
The Gold-crest (Regudus regulus).
The Migration of a Gold-crest—Extinct Forms— The Archzopteryx—
The Phororachus—The Secretary Bird—The Seriama—Ratite or
Struthious Birds—Kiwis—Rheas—The Hoatzin.
I HAVE frequently been asked, ‘“‘ Which do you consider
the most wonderful bird in the world?” It is a difficult
question to answer, and I always shirk the reply, for in my
opinion every bird is wonderful, and the more we study
their habits, and try to understand their inmost lives, their
thoughts, their instincts, the more wonderful do birds
appear. I well remember a gentleman calling on me at the
Natural History Museum in October 1897, bringing with
him a small bird in a cage. It was a little Gold-crest
(Regulus regulus), which had flown into the topmost car of
B
2 Wonders of the Bird World
the Gigantic Wheel at the Earl’s Court Exhibition on the
preceding night, about 10 p.m. I had never studied a
Gold-crest alive at such close quarters before, and I thought
I had never seen such a wonderful little creature in my
life. As it hopped backwards and forwards in its cage, it
carried its brilliant orange crest in a manner not depicted
in any drawing of the species with which I am acquainted,
and, instead of displaying the crest as an ornament of the
male sex, as most people imagine, the brilliant crown was
overshadowed by the raised feathers on the sides of the
head, and was by no means in evidence as one would have
expected it to be. The Gold-crest is a common enough
bird in Great Britain, and I have often seen it in a wild
state, but certainly I never realized what a beautiful little
creature it really was, until I had the opportunity of
examining it in captivity. Then again arose the thought
of the incidence of its capture—in the middle of a big
city in the darkness—and the remembrance of this tiny
being’s migration ; for, of course, it was proceeding south
by night, when the fatal glare of the electric light at a
great elevation lured it to its capture. And then I re-
called my experience in Heligoland in 1876, where I first
became acquainted with the phenomenon of bird-migration
in its fullest sense, when I spent a fortnight on that sea-girt
rock, and witnessed with Mr. Frank Nicholson and the late
Mr. Henry Seebohm, the autumn flight of many a migrant.
Heligoland is an isolated rock standing out in the Baltic
Sea, off the mouth of the Elbe, and in 1876 possessed but a
single tree of any size, which was growing half-way down the
staircase which connects the upland with the shore. In
this tree, during the daytime, settled many little weary
birds after their long journey across the sea, and as we went
down each day to the shooting-ground on Sandy Island,
several Gold-crests would be laid out for purchase by the
small boys of the island, who shot them with catapults.
Extinct Forms 3
Truly wonderful little travellers, if only their migration to
Heligoland is considered; but we know that on the east
coast of England also, the Gold-crests arrive during the
autumn in vast numbers, travelling across the North Sea to
our shores. Thus in every sense this little species may be
considered a wonderful bird, and there are numbers of
species just as wonderful in their flight and in their general
economy.
In talking of extraordinary birds, however, our minds
naturally revert to the past, and we are tempted to inquire
as to the origin of bird-life on the earth, and as to the
aspect of the forerunners of the present race of birds
which we see around us to-day. In no Class of animals is
the record so imperfect. Fossil mammals and reptiles
have been discovered in the beds of bygone ages, which
help greatly to the understanding of the present forms of
these animals on the earth, as evolved from those of past
times, but with birds the case is different. Probably on
account of their lighter bodies, which may have been swept
away by rivers or torrents, the fossil remains of birds are
few, and we know very little of the species which inhabited
the globe in ancient times. The fossil birds as yet dis-
covered help us but little, for we find that where extinct
Penguins, Tinamous, etc., have been discovered, it has been
in the countries where both these groups flourish at the
present day. The same may be said of the flightless
Emeus and Rheas, though we have evidence in the case of
the Ostrich that its range was once more widely extended
than it is in our own era. The discovery of a large extinct
species of Coot (/uliea) in the Chatham Islands, which
finds its nearest ally in an extinct form in Mauritius,
associated as it is with other fossil forms of flightless Rails
(Rallide) and other birds, suggests to us the possibility of
a former land connection between portions of the earth at
present far distant and separated by seas of great depth.
4 Wonders of the Bird World
Thus a problem of great interest is at once suggested, of
which I speak more fully in a subsequent chapter on the
‘Geographical Distribution of Birds.’
Figure of the Archeopteryx.
From a picture by W. P. Pycraft.
Certainly one of the most wonderful of birds must have
been the Archeopteryx, an archaic type of the Jurassic
age, and known only from the fossil
remains of two specimens discovered
in the lithographic slate of Solenhofen
in Bavaria. Like several other ancient
forms of bird life, the Archeopteryx, or
Lizard-tailed bird, possessed actual
teeth, and it had a very reptilian-
looking head. That it was a real bird, however, is proved
by the impression of the feathers which are to be seen
Read of Archaeopteryx.
(SyV5a4 SIUso4ogsaF{) MT Pal|iq-yooT, y7 Jo uoTe10\say
The Phororachus Fi
in the slabs of lithographic stone enclosing its remains
in the British Museum and in Berlin. It will be seen from
Suggested restoration of Phororachus inflatus, Amegh. Froma sketch by W. P. Pycraft.
the illustration which has been drawn from the restoration
designed by my friend, Mr. W. P. Pycraft, and now in the
8 Wonders of the Bird World
Bird Gallery at the Natural History Museum, that the
Archaopteryx possessed a totally different kind of tail from
that of any. existing bird. Instead of having a fan-shaped
tail like that of our ordinary birds at the present day, it
had a long lizard-like tail, consisting of some twenty
vertebre, to which were attached in pairs the rectrices, or
tail-feathers. It was apparently of the size of our Common
Rook (Zrypanocorax frugilegus). Another peculiarity of
the Archeopteryx lies in the fact that the three fingers of the
wing corresponding to the three fingers of existing birds,
were all furnished with a large claw, just as are the fingers
of reptiles. In those few birds of the present day which
have claws on the wing, never more than two are found,
that on the third finger being absent. In at least one
instance, that of the Hoatzin, these claws have a functional
value, being used by the nestling for climbing purposes.
Among the many fossil forms discovered in the Cretaceous
beds, two from North America particularly deserve notice,
viz. the genera Hesperornis and Ichthyornis of Professor Marsh.
Both of these had actual teeth, and the first opinion of the
describer was that they formed a separate and distinct Order
of Birds, which he called Odontornithes, but recent research
tends to prove that Hesperornis was a kind of flightless
Diver, and Ichthyornis was probably allied to the Cormorants
of our day. More wonderful birds of the Eocene period
have also been discovered in Patagonia. These are called
Stereornithes, and of one of them Mr. Pycraft has attempted
a restoration, viz. of the genus Phororachus, based upon
the remains discovered by Professor Ameghino, and now
in the Natural History Museum. It was in all probability
a giant form of Seriama, a bird peculiar to South America,
and one which has been variously placed by ornithologists
among the Hawks, or near the Bustards and Cranes. In
general aspect a Seriama is not unlike the Secretary Bird
(Serpentartus secretarius) of Africa, and in many of their
The Secretary Bird 9
habits these curious birds resemble each other. They are
both amply crested, they have long legs and a graduated
The Secretary-Bird (Serfentarius secretarius).
tail, and the bill is Accipitrine and Hawk-like, more so in
ie) Wonders of the Bird World
the Secretary Bird, which is, moreover, a thorough ground
Hawk in its ways. It is an inhabitant of the more open
country in Africa, and is everywhere protected on account
of its supposed utility in killing snakes, and especially
cobras. The latter it is said to approach with the wings
spread out in front of it to act as a shield, and from under
this protection it rains a shower of blows of extraordinary
power with its feet, and generally ends by crushing the
reptile in a very short time. Any one who has seen a
Secretary Bird strike a dead rat and reduce it toa pulp in
a few seconds, can bear witness to the hammer-like force
with which the bird brings down its feet on its victim. And
this is the more remarkable, because Mr. Layard says that
the young Secretaries have such brittle legs, that they snap,
if the birds are startled into a run.
Stalking through the grass, the great height of the
Secretary, thanks to its long legs, enables it to take a wide
view of the surrounding country and it is thus able to
perceive its prey at a considerable distance. It at once
elevates its crest and spreads its wings, and in the contest
which ensues, the cobra will have but little chance, though
on some occasions the Secretary comes off second best,
and has been known to die from the poison of the snake,
should the latter succeed in drawing blood. The bird is
capable of swallowing snakes five or six feet in length
and four inches in diameter, and it also devours rats and
lizards, tortoises, as well as locusts and other insects.
The South American Seriama (Cariama cristata) is
a much smaller bird, and is an inhabitant of the open
Campos of south-eastern Brazil and Argentina. An
allied species, Burmeister’s Seriama (Chunga burimetstert),
is found in the province of Tucuman. Both forms of
Seriama are ground birds,and the common species inhabits
the grassy country, while the Chunga lives in the forest.
They have a harsh and screaming cry, and feed on insects
The Seriama Il
and berries, as well as snakes and other reptiles. They
have the same peculiar habit as the Secretary of pounding
The Seriama (Cariama cristata).
their prey to a pulp by striking it with their feet. The
nest is placed in a low bush, and the two eggs are some-
12 Wonders of the Bird World
what like those of the Rails (Radda), being rather rounded
and spotted. Their method of nesting is also different
from that of the Cranes and Bustards, but it does to
some extent resemble that of the Secretary, which builds a
huge nest in a bush or a tree, and also lays but two eggs,
which are white, slightly smudged with rust-colour. The
Seriama must in fact be considered as a survival of some
ancient form of bird life, of which probably Phororachus
and the other Stereornithes were the forerunners.
Of the Struthious or Ratite Birds! there are four distinct
stocks existing at the present day, viz. the Ostriches
(Struthionide) in Africa, and Rheas (Rede) in South
America, the Emeus (Dromezdz@) and the Cassowaries
(Casnarizde) in the Australian Region; and the Kiwis
(Apterygide) in New Zealand. In the latter country also
lived within historic times the gigantic Moas (Dznornzthide),
which had close allies in the great Struthious birds of
Madagascar (4 pyornis and MZlullerornis). Of the Moas
there were many species and several genera, varying much
in size. from the great Dznxornis maximus, which stood
twelve feet high, to the smaller forms, such as A xomalopteryx
parva, which were not more than three feet in height.
Some of the lesser Moas possessed a hallux or hind toe, and
thus they resembled their smaller New Zealand cousins, the
Kiwis, and differed from the Ostriches, Emeus, and Rheas.
The cause of the extinction of the Moas in New Zealand
has, as yet, not received any satisfactory explanation.
One of the most recent discoveries of remains took place
on an exposed piece of rising ground, where a man, while
ploughing, happened to unearth a large bone, which he
sent to Dr. H. O. Forbes, who was then the Director of
the Christchurch Museum at Canterbury, New Zealand.
On proceeding to the place Dr. Forbes ascertained by
1So called from the absence of a keel to the sternum or breast-
bone, which thus resembles a raft or flat-bottomed boat (va/zs).
Ratite or Struthious Birds ee
probing the ground with an iron rod that the bones were
not scattered over the whole area, but were confined to a
comparatively small and narrow space, not exceeding
thirty yards in length. Yet, on digging down to this queer
sepulchre, remains of no less than six hundred Moas of all
sizes were discovered, as well as those of Geese, Ducks,
Birds of Prey, and other birds: so that, even if some
unforeseen catastrophe had overwhelmed this herd of
flightless Moas, the presence of birds of such strong flight
as Ducks and Hawks is still unaccounted for. It seems
certain that the Moas survived until comparatively recent
times, as remains of the skin of the feet and actual
feathers of the birds have been discovered. Although of
such size and massiveness that some of them out-topped
our Ostriches in height, the wings were certainly vestigial,
even if they were developed at all.
The Ratzte which survive at the present day are all
birds of considerable size, some of them, like the Ostriches,
being gigantic. The latter birds are easily separated from
the other forms by their having only two toes, nor have they
any “after-shaft ” to the body-feathers. This “after-shaft,”
as it is called, has the appearance of a duplicate of the
main feather, and springs from the inner surface of the
base of the same quill. In most birds it is very small, and
is often absent altogether, but in some of the Ratite birds
it is strongly developed and acquires the same length as
the shaft of the main feather. This is the case in the
Emeus, Cassowaries, and Moas, which thus appear to be
clothed with double feathers. The Emeus (Drvome@ide) are
entirely Australian, and are inhabitants of the open
country, from many parts of which they have now been
exterminated. They have no visible wings and tail, both
1 The wings in the Ratite Birds are often spoken of as “rudimentary,”
but as they are really the remains of what were once well-developed
organs, I prefer to speak of them as “ vestigial.”
14 Wonders of the Bird World
of which are vestigial, and are hidden below the dense
body-feathering. The Cassowaries (Casuarizd@) have the
same long “after-shaft” as the Emeus, but they show a
remarkable development of the wing; this consists of a
few strong black shafts, resembling horny spines, which
have no barbs like ordinary quills, but project beyond the
feathers of the sides of the body, and form a visible
remnant of a once functional wing. All the Cassowaries are
more or less brightly coloured on the bare portions of the
head and neck, and are generally ornamented with wattles,
while on the top of the head there is usually a large horny
casque. The inner toe also is furnished with a remarkable
long straight claw. The Cassowaries are found in New
Guinea and the adjacent islands, as well as in the Cape York
Peninsula of Australia.
The Rheas (R/etd@) are exclusively South American in
their habitat; they resemble the Ostriches of Africa in
their general appearance, and in the want of an “after-
shaft” to the body-feathers, but they have three toes like
the other Ratite.
It may lastly be mentioned that in Madagascar there
have been found enormous eggs of a Ratite bird, generally
in the lap of the skeleton of some chief, presumably to
afford him sustenance during his passage to the other
world. These eggs have since been identified as belonging
to gigantic Moa-like birds (Epyornithid@) which inhabited
Madagascar within historic times, and of which the sub-
fossil remains of several species have been discovered. The
eggs are the largest of any known bird, living or extinct.
The Kiwis differ much from the other Ratite Birds,
having, like the Emeus, perfectly vestigial wings and no
visible tail, but they possess a hallux or hind toe. Their
plumage is of a hairy texture, and with their long curved
bill, in which the nasal opening is situated near the tip in-
stead of near the base, they have the appearance of gigantic
The Kiwis rs
and clumsy-footed Rails. In my opinion they are nothing
but Struthious Rails, and they very much resemble the
latter birds in their nocturnal and retiring habits, and in
their method of progression over the ground. Like other
Struthious birds, however, they are great adepts at
kicking, and in the series of living Kiwis exhibited by
the Hon. Walter Rothschild at a meeting of the British
Ornithologists’ Club, it was amusing to see that some of
Kiwi (4fpteryx australis).
the species kicked forwards and some backwards, but all
delivered the stroke with right good will and like a flash
of lightning. A formidable wound could be made by
their strong feet, armed, as the toes are, with sharp and
massive claws.
In habits the Kiwis are strictly nocturnal birds, and
greatly resent being disturbed in the daytime. Their prin-
cipal food consists of worms, for which they probe into the
16 Wonders of the Bird World
soft ground, and in search of which they are probably aided
by a keen sense of touch and smell, in which the peculiar
position of the nostrils doubtless plays a part. Another
remarkable feature in the Apteryx is the large size of the
white eggs which it lays, in this respect resembling the
pyornithide of Madagascar.
One characteristic of the Ratite Birds must also be
mentioned, and that is, that the incubation of the eggs is
undertaken by the male bird. As will be seen later on,
there are a few other species in which this is the rule, but
in these instances there may be some reason in the shape
of protective colouration, but in the Aatzte there is no such
apparent cause, as the sexes are alike in colour. Neverthe-
less it is a well-known feature in all the Ratite birds, which ~
is also shared by the Struthious Partridges (77zamzformes)
of South America, known as Tinamous. It is, however,
curious to read of the habits of the Rhea, when the cock
bird, as the nesting-season approaches, begins to utter its
booming love-notes, and drives away all the younger males
from the flock, or fights desperately for the harem with
any male of its own age and weight. Mr. W. H. Hudson
has described these fights, which are carried on in a novel
way, viz. by the two combatants twisting their long necks
together and then biting viciously at each other’s heads,
while they turn round and round, and pound the earth into
a circular trench with their great feet. The females lay
their eggs in a common nest, and should they not have
done their laying before the cock “becomes broody,” he
drives them away with great fury, and begins to incubate.
When the young are hatched, he takes the greatest care of
them, and it is then dangerous, says Mr. Hudson, to
approach the Rhea on horseback, as the bird, with neck
stretched out horizontally and outspread wings, charges
suddenly, making so huge and grotesque a figure that the
tamest horse becomes ungovernable with terror.
The Common Rhea (Rhea americana), with the male bird attending to the nestlings.
Cc
Ratite or Struthious Birds 19
Another very wonderful bird is the Hoatzin (Opzesthocomus
hoagzin) of South America. It seems to be a survival
on the earth of some ancient form, for it possesses features
quite different from those of the birds of the present day,
and it is also probably the surviving representative of a
type once widely distributed over the earth, as Professor
Milne-Edwards informs me that the bones of his genus
Filholornis, from the phosphate deposits of Chaux in the
south of France, can only be compared with those of
Opisthocomus, and hence it would seem that Hoatzins of
some kind or another formerly lived in Europe.
In appearance the Hoatzin is like a Game-bird, and it
was for many years considered to belong to the family of
Curassows (Cracide), which inhabit the South American
continent. Its anatomy, however, has recently been more
closely studied, and shows that it possesses characters quite
different from those of the Galliformes, and hence the genus
Opisthocomus is now generally allowed to constitute a
distinct Family, if not indeed a distinct Order, of Birds. In
the Ratite Birds we have seen that one of the most striking
features in their skeleton was the complete absence of any
keel to the sternum or breast-bone, and in Opzsthocomus we
find another development of this kecl, differing from that
of other birds. The keel is in fact only found on the
posterior part of the sternum, and falls away gradually
on the anterior portion of the latter, while the other
bones belonging to this part of the skeleton, the coracoids
and the “ merry-thought” or furcula, are fused together in a
manner unlike that of any other known bird. The reason
for this peculiar arrangement is now recognized as a pro-
vision for the enormous crop with which the Hoatzin is
provided.
The single species of the genus Ofzsthocomus is an
inhabitant of the rivers of Amazonia and the northern
portion of South America from Guiana to Ecuador and
20 Wonders of the Bird World
Peru. Here it lives entirely by the side of the water, being
apparently nowhere a rare bird in these South American
countries, though, owing to the disagreeable smell which
emanates from it, it is known in some places as the “Stink
Bird” and is nowhere captured as an article of food. It
builds a nest of sticks on the thin branches overhanging
the water, and the eggs are not white as in the case of
the Curassows, but are of a creamy-buff colour with dark
Embryo of Hoatzin. After Pycraft.
spots, and closely resemble those of the Rad/zde or Family
of Rails. The bird has also other Ralline properties, for
it is also able to swim well, while the young, if forced to
take to the water, both dive and swim as to the manner
born.
The Hoatzin is often spoken of as a “reptilian” bird, as
it exhibits certain characters which are certainly reptilian.
Even the unfledged embryo shows claws on the pollex and
index digits of the wing, but these are much more strongly
developed in the full-grown nestling, which is covered with
The Hoatzin (Opisthocomus hoazin).
The Hoatzin 23
brown down. These little people use the claws on their
wings as if they were hands, and when disturbed they
crawl out of the nest on “all fours,” as Mr. Quelch tells
us, and not only try to escape by clinging on to every
little twig which offers itself, pulling themselves out of
danger by the use of bill, feet, and wings, but, if upset in the
water, they will swim and dive with great rapidity into the
thick bushy growth on the sides of the rivers, into which
they cannot be pursued.
Nestling of Hoatzin. From a specimen obtained by Mr. J. J. Quetch, exhibited
in the Bird Gallery of the Natural History Museum.
CHAPTER II
WONDERFUL BIRDS (condenued)
Frigate Bird.
The Megapodes or Mound-builders—The Whale-headed Stork—The
Dodo and its kindred—Darters—Frigate Birds—Steamer-Ducks
—Penguins.
To the Australian Region we turn for our next wonderful
bird and find it in the Brush Turkey (Catheturus lathanit).
This bird belongs to the family of Megapodes or Mound-
builders (A7egapodide), the species of which are found only
in the Australian and Malayan sub-regions, extending as
far as the Philippines, and the Nicobar Islands in the Bay
of Bengal. None of the true Megapodes make any nest, but
place their eggs in a mound and leave them to be hatched
by the fermentation of the latter or by the heat of the sun.
They differ from all other Game-birds except the Curassows
in having the hind toe on the same level as the other
24
The Mound-builders 25
toes, whereas in ordinary Game-birds the contrary is the
case, and the hind toe is elevated above the level of the
others.
The name of Brush Turkey has been bestowed upon the
members of the genus Catheturus and its allies on account
of the coloured wattles of the neck, which resemble those of
an ordinary Turkey (JZeleagris). The size of the mound
which the Megapodes raise is sometimes enormous, and is
generally the work of several birds. Both sexes are believed
to assist in the work of construction, which is achieved by
means of their powerful feet ; these are apparently the most
strongly developed “scratching” organs to be met with in
the whole Class of Birds. The mounds are used, and added
to, year after year. Many of them are of great size, and
sometimes reach a height of five or six yards, with a circum-
ference of thirty yards or more, and the labour in construct-
ing them must be considerable, seeing that the birds use but
one foot when piling up the earth and refuse of which the
mound is composed. Gould says that he has seen the
Brush Turkey seize the material of which it was making
the mound in its foot, and throw it back to one common
centre, the surface of the ground being so completely
scratched over that scarcely a leaf or a blade of grass was
left; and a nestling Megapode which was kept in confine-
ment has also been seen to scratch up and grasp a handful
of sand, using one foot only, so that from the earliest age
the mound-building instinct is evidently inherent in the
bird. Another singular feature in the economy of the
Megapode is that the nestlings, when they escape from
the egg, are fully clothed with feathers and provided with
perfectly formed wings, so that they can fly at once.
At the same time it appears certain that they do not
always avail themselves of their privilege, unique among
birds, for nestlings have been dug out of mounds at a
great depth. Some of the little birds are believed to have
26 “Wonders of the Bird World
been quite three weeks old, so that it is difficult to imagine
the object of their stay in the darkness when they were
quite able to support themselves outside; and, again, one
is tempted to inquire how they can see, and on what they
feed during their imprisonment in the mound. In some
places the natives suggest that the old females do not
absolutely desert their young, but that, on the contrary,
both parents revisit the mound and uncover the eggs. The
latter are sometimes placed at an extraordinary depth in
the mound. Thus Gilbert relates that he saw eggs of the
Australian Megapode (Megapodius tuimulus) dug out by
natives from a depth of six feet. Only one egg is laid by
the female in a hole in the mound, and the earth is then
strewn very lightly and the hole covered up. Several eggs
are found in the same mound, but each in its separate hole,
and with the broad end uppermost. In many of the
islands a trade is done by the natives, who sell the eggs to
passing ships, and the birds are therefore generally pre-
served with care, and even become semi-domesticated.
Speaking of Brenchley’s Megapode (JZ. brenchleyt) in the
Solomon Islands, Mr. C. M. Woodford says that when
he landed on Savo he saw “hundreds of Megapodes”
scratching out their holes in the warm sand, and scarcely
stopping at his approach. He writes—
“The natives highly prize its eggs as an article of food.
They are considerably larger than a duck’s egg, and out of
all proportion to the size of the bird. The birds lay in
open sandy clearings, generally near the sea, which are kept
clear of shrubs and undergrowth by the natives, and by the
sand being constantly turned over by the birds. The eggs
are buried sometimes as deeply as two feet from the surface,
and are hatched by the natural heat of the hot sand. Many
thousands of birds congregate at the same place, the laying-
yards being often some acres in extent. At the island of
Savo, where these birds especially abound, they become so
“(uivysvy snanzsyzvg) Se¥xiny, ysnag eyL
The Mound-builders 29
tame that I have seen a native digging out eggs, and birds
digging fresh holes to lay in within a few yards of one
another. Dogs do great damage by destroying the eggs
and birds. The natives consequently spear all the dogs
caught trespassing in the laying-yards. Another enemy to
the eggs is the large Monitor Lizard (Varanus indicus) ; in
many of the yards the marks left by their tails, like that
made by a stick drawn along the sand, may always be
noticed.”
The Mound-builders are, as a rule, birds of very dull and
sober brown plumage, and beyond a little bright colour on
the heads and necks they show but slight ornamentation in
colour, Anexception may be made in the case of Wallace’s
Megapode (Eulzpoa wallact), which is rather prettily banded,
andthe Moleo-bird of Celebes (legacephalum mateo) rejoices
in a lead-coloured knob on the head and in a delicately-
tinted pink breast. The Moleo is supposed to lay about eight
eggs in the season, and therefore Dr. Wallace believes that
three months must elapse between the laying of the first
and the last egg. The latter is large for the size of
the bird, and it is suggested by the above-named author
that as the egg fills up the lower cavity of the body, and
the remaining eight or ten eggs are only of the size of small
peas, the long period which elapses between the laying of
each egg and the placing of them in a mound, is a wise
provision of Nature, as the birds could not hatch them out
in the ordinary way, while they would certainly starve if
their nidification lasted over three months. One great
difference between the method of hatching the eggs by the
Moleo as compared with that of the other Megapodes, seems
to be that it never constructs a big mound like the gener-
ality of these birds, but, on the contrary, digs a pit in the
sand to a depth of one to three feet, and therein deposits
its egg. It is also particular as to the kind of sand it adopts
for the hatching of the egg, and Dr. Meyer says that in
30 Wonders of the Bird World
Wallace Bay, in Celebes, the bird chooses the black
volcanic deposits in preference to the white sand.
Although the habits of the Mound-builders have de-
servedly attracted the attention of naturalists as one of the
most remarkable phenomena of nature, there has never been
a more intelligent account written than that of Dr. Meyer
and Mr. Wiglesworth in their lately published ‘Birds of
Celebes’ (vol. ii. p.681), and as it contains a number of new
and hitherto unpublished conclusions, I make no apology
for quoting it in full. The authors write of the Moleo—
“Unlike the JZegapodius, the Megacephalon does not
raise a heap of rubbish in which to lay its eggs, but sinks a
pit in the sand which it afterwards fills in, burying its egg
to a depth of from one to three feet. One of its favourite
breeding-grounds has been made known by Dr. Wallace in
a spot on the north coast between the islands of Lembeh
and Banka, to which Dr. Guillemard and his companions
have given the name of ‘Wallace Bay.’ Meyer has
described it as a large irregular bay, with d/ack sand, which
did not consist of sand in the common term, but of small
stones up to the size of a bean, into which the foot sank up
to the ankle. It seems to mark, as Wallace first observed,
an ancient lava stream of the Klaba Volcano, which has
fiown down a valley into the sea, and become decomposed
and triturated into loose black sand.
“In the Bone Valley, Von Rosenberg noticed that the
eggs stand on end upright in the sand in which they are
laid. According to Wallace, a number of females lay in the
same hole, each egg being that of a different bird; but
whether he makes this statement from personal observation,
or after the assertions of the natives (which are utterly
unreliable), or from the finding of many fresh eggs! in the
same hole, we are not told. Like Dr. Guillemard, Dr.
' Many days appear to elapse between the deposit of the successive
eggs.
The Moleo a1
Wallace watched the birds at work in pairs, choosing either
a fresh place or an old hole, but it appears still to need
confirmation, whether other pairs make use of the same
hole. Owing to the continuous diggings the surface of the
sand must always be changing in appearance. Guillemard
compares it ‘to nothing better than the surface of a rough,
confused sea “—and it is conceivable that it would be im-
possible for a female to discover the spot where it laid its
first egg.
“ Although the Moleo is not known to take any further
care for the egg or its product, after the former has been
laid in an upright position and covered deeply with sand,
this apparent lack of philoprogenitive affection so strongly
developed in most birds is counterbalanced by the extra-
ordinary forethought—if one may use the word—for the
ultimate welfare of the young displayed by the parent-birds,
in selecting the places where their eggs and offspring will
be left to their fate. The burying of the egg at a consider-
able depth answers two purposes, protection from egg-
eating animals [N.B.—The eggs do not, however, always
escape. Dr. Meyer shot a young crocodile (Crocodilus
biporcatus), three feet in length, busy digging for eggs in a
Moleo-hole, and saw other crocodile-diggings], and the
preservation for it by the needful heat of the sun absorbed
during the day, by which the eggs are kept from perishing
in the cool of the night. Now black absorbs heat, while
white reflects it, and this seems to be the reason why the
birds have made a chief breeding-spot of the hot black
volcanic sand of Wallace Bay. It is interesting to note
that the black gravel on these shores alternates with white
sand, as Dr. Meyer knows from personal observations, and
that the Moleos only select the black sand, as far as is
known. A similar observation is made by Dr. Studer on
Megapodius freycineti in New Britain. Here the bird lays
its eggs in black volcanic sand, the temperature of which
QZ Wonders of the Bird World
registered 38° to 40° C. and cooled but little during the
night, ‘as the black sand absorbs very much heat and emits
little’ (‘Reise der Gazelle,’ iii. p. 253, 1889). But a much
more striking display of sagacity in the selection of breed-
ing-spots by the Moleo is recorded by the cousins, Drs. P.
and F. Sarazin, whose account we translate. In the Bone
Valley (about 750 feet) the naturalists came across ‘a great
number of pits, which Moleo-fowls had dug out in order to
lay their eggs there. Our people made a search, and we
secured, to our satisfaction, four new-laid eggs. In the same
bamboo-thicket, exactly on the spot where the numerous
Moleo-pits were scraped out, one against the other, like
wolf-pits, was a warm spring. The temperature of the
water must have been about 60° C. The circumstance that,
here in the mountains, where the temperature, especially in
the forest, is on the whole low, Moleo eggs laid simply in
the earth should come to full development, had puzzled us
here already, and led us to suspect a connection between
these diggings and the warm spring. Somewhat further on
our journey up to Bone Valley (about 1500 feet), we came
upon Moleo-diggings again, and, as in the last case, we dis-
covered not far from them a warm spring of perhaps 50° C.,
which formed a little brook. Although on putting our
hands into it, a sharp smarting sensation of the skin between
the fingers resulted, all the stones of the brook were coated
with blue-green alge. With regard to the breeding of the
Moleos, therefore, we are able to maintain our opinion that
the bird indeed lays its eggs in the sand on the hot sea-
shore, where the heat of the sun then proves powerful
enough to hatch them, but that in the mountains, and
especially in the shady forest of the interior, for the warmth
of the sun must be substituted some other power, and
for this purpose the Moleo chooses the vicinity of warm-
water springs, which it searches out, and makes its breeding-
pits in the ground warmed by the hot springs. Accord-
The Mound-builders 33
ingly, where Moleos are encountered in the interior of
Celebes, there warm springs will be found not far off. The
Moleo thus makes use of the two inorganic sources of
warmth by which its eggs are to be hatched, viz., on the
one hand the sun, on the other warm springs, though other
Megapodes make use of the heat produced by the ferment-
ation of vegetable matter placed over their eggs. Of the
influence of the warm springs we found further confirmation,
for near another still hotter spring, in which one could not
keep one’s hand, and which had formed a considerable pool,
Moleo-pits were again found. We had them dug out, and
procured two eggs for our rapidly-diminishing larder.
Finally, we came across a third spring, and observed
Moleo-pits near it also.’ Later on the Sarazins found
similar Moleo-pits also on the Lokon Volcano, in ground
strongly heated by hot steam.”
The above extract may be rather long, but I hope that
my readers will peruse it carefully, for it is one of the most
suggestive narratives of the ‘Wonders of the Bird World’
with which I am acquainted, and is quite new to English
students of natural history. When Gould made _ his
celebrated journey to Australia to study the life of the
native animals of that wonderful continent, he considered
his discovery of the nesting-habits of the Mound-builders
as one of his greatest achievements, and since his day many
facts have come to light respecting the habits of these truly
extraordinary birds.
Our final note on the Megapodes must be devoted to
the life of the nestlings. Writing of the Lzfoa or Ocellated
Megapode of Australia, the late Sir George Grey sent the
following note to Mr. Gould from “Government House,
Adelaide, December 14, 1842”—“ There is only one male
and one female Lzfoa to each mound. They repair the old
mound and do not build a new one, both birds assisting in
scratching the sand to the nest. The female commences to
D
34 Wonders of the Bird World
lay in the early days of September, or when the spear-grass
begins to shoot. Both sexes approach the nest together when
the female is about to lay, and they take an equal share in the
labour of covering and uncovering the mound. After every
sunrise the female deposits an egg, and lays altogether from
eight to ten. If the natives rob the mound, the female will
lay again in the same nest, but she will only lay the full
number of eggs twice in one summer. From the com-
mencement of building, until the last eggs are hatched, four
moons elapse, which would give a very long period of time
before the last young one emerges. The nestling scratches
its way out alone, and the mother does not assist it. The
young birds usually come out one at a time; occasionally
ee:
Section through the mound in its undisturbed state, the pale tint indicating the portion of
sand, the darker tint the leaves, etc. (From a sketch by the late Sir George Grey in
Gould’s ‘ Handbook.’)
a pair appear together. The mother, who is feeding in the
scrub in the vicinity, hears the call of the nestling and runs
to it, and then takes care of it as a domestic fowl does of
its chick. When the young are all hatched, the mother is
accompanied by eight or ten nestlings, who remain with
her until they are more than half-grown. The male bird
does not accompany them.” The mound of the Loa is
described by Sir George Grey as follows—“A nearly
circular hole, of about eighteen inches in diameter, is
scratched in the ground to the depth of seven or eight
inches, and filled with dead leaves, dead grass, and similar
materials; and a large mass of the same substance is
placed all round it upon the ground. Over this first layer
a large mound of sand, mixed with dried grass, etc., is
The Mound-builders 45
thrown, and finally the whole assumes the form of a dome.
When an egg is to be deposited, the top is laid open,
and a hole is scratched in its centre to within two or three
inches of the bottom of the layer of dead leaves. The egg
is placed just at the edge of the hole, in a vertical position
with the smaller end downwards. The sand is then thrown
in again, and the mound is restored to its original form.
The egg which has thus been deposited is, therefore, com-
pletely surrounded and enveloped in soft sand, having from
four to six inches of sand below the lower end of the egg
and the layer of dead leaves. When a second egg is laid,
it is deposited in precisely the same plane as the first, but
at the opposite side of the hole alluded to. When a third
—"
Mound of Lifoa ocellata. From a sketch by the late Sir George Grey. The light part
represents the sand, the darker tint that which is made of leaves, etc. (From Gould's
‘Handbook to the Birds of Australia.’)
egg is laid, it is placed in the same plane as the others,
but, as it were, at the third corner of the square. When
the fourth egg is laid, it is still placed in the same plane,
but in the fourth corner of the square, or rather of the
fe)
lozenge, the figure being of this form 0 0 The next four
fe)
eggs in succession are placed in the interstices, but always
in the same plane, so that at last there is a circle of eight
eggs all standing upright in the sand, with several inches
of sand intervening between each.”
With regard to the extraordinary habit of the newly-
hatched young remaining in the mound for some time after
it has emerged from the egg, Sir George Grey relates that
36 Wonders of the Bird World
in the nests he found the white ants to be very numerous,
“thus showing a beautiful provision of nature in preparing
the necessary tender food for the young bird in its
emergence.” A specimen of a nestling of Cuming’s Mega-
pode (Megapodius cumingi), not only fully fledged, but
having perfect wings, and thus able to take care of itself
A bird's-eye view of the mound of Lipoa as seen from above. The sand is supposed to have
sence uadi y theii slaiie Soasade. (hei wee crane Sih Gern ey
in Gould’s ‘ Handbook,’ ii. 162.)
in every way, was dug out of a mound in the island of
Palawan by Mr. John Whitehead, and one may well ponder
over the circumstances which induce the baby Megapodes
to remain in the darkness of their mound for many days,
perhaps weeks. What do they feed on, and why, having
perfect wings to fly with, and strong legs to run with, do
they not come out at once from the darkness and roam
The Mound-Builders aa
about in the jungle like their parents? The difference
between the appearance of an ordinary Chicken and
that of a young Megapode depends upon the fully
developed wings of the latter, and the absence of flight-
feathers in the former. Writing of Cuming’s Megapode,
Nestling Megapode, to show the fully-developed wings.
Mr. Whitehead observes—“ The young bird’s early life is
to me a mystery. It may be dug out of the heap fully
fledged and ready to fly. I got one which might well pass
for the adult bird of another species, but this nestling. had
never seen the daylight till we dug it out: none of the
feathers had soft shafts, or seemed in any way new. The
38 Wonders -of the Bird World
young are neither fed nor looked after by their parents,
which, as they are of all ages, would be difficult. They
generally squat until you are within fifteen yards or so, and
then take wing like a Quail, never running out of danger
like the old birds.”
There are many forms of birds which have a perfectly
grotesque appearance. Such are some of the Storks and
Herons, and there is no more comical-looking creature than
an Adjutant or Marabou Stork, examples of which are
nearly always on view in our Zoological Gardens. They
are ungainly creatures to look at, having a bare and scabby
head, while from the fore-neck depends a pouch which the
bird is able to inflate, and repulsive as this hanging sack
looks on the neck, it is apparently intended as a sexual
ornament. Not only do the bare head and neck, and the
ruff of white feathers round the latter, give a vulturine ap-
pearance to the Adjutant, but the large Indian species
(Leptoptelus dubcus) is a Vulture in many of its habits, and
associates with the latter birds as a scavenger, devouring
carcases of dead animals and all kinds of offal. So useful
are the birds in this respect, that in many parts of India
the Adjutant is protected by law. They also soar high in
the air like their vulturine allies, and although the only noise
that they make in confinement is the snapping of their
bills after the manner of other Storks, they are said to
make a grunting noise like the lowing of a buffalo during
the breeding season. At the latter time they resort to
trees and build a large nest, often in company with Pelicans,
though they sometimes make their nests on the bare rocks
at a considerable height in the mountains.
Another grotesque-looking creature is the Shoe-bill or
Whale-headed Stork (Baleniceps rex), which lives in the
districts of the Upper Nile. Since the Soudan has been
so disturbed, no specimens of animals have been sent from
there for several years, and it is a long time since a Shoe-
The Whale-headed Stork 39
bill has been seen in Europe. The range of this peculiar
bird must be very limited, as it has not been procured in
any other of the marshy districts of Africa.
The first mention of this extraordinary bird occurs in
the writing of the German traveller Werner, who visited
the White Nile districts in 1840-41, when he states that
he saw a bird on the so-called No Lake, which was “as
large as a young camel, with a bill like a Pelican, but with-
out the pouch.” Eight years later an Italian slave-dealer,
named Nicola Ulivi, brought two skins to Khartoum, which
were ultimately bought by an English traveller, Mr. Mans-
field Parkyns, in Cairo, and sent to London, where they
were described and figured by Gould in 1851. The English
Consul Petherick had several living examples at Khartoum,
and in 1860 he managed to bring two of them alive to
England, where they lived for some time in the Zoological
Gardens. He observes—“ The Badleniceps, though found
only in or near water, is but rarely seen on the banks of
the Nile, and then only during a short period of the year,
when the interior is dried up, in the summer, during the
short hot season preceding the rains. It prefers the natural
banks and morasses of the interior, where the shallowness
of the water, distributed over a large surface, affords it
greater facilities for wading than the banks of the Nile.
These frequently shelve off into deep water more or less
abruptly, and thus furnish but comparatively few spots
favourable to the support and habits of the bird.
“For this reason, at about 100 miles west of the Nile, in
from 5° to 8° N. Lat., at Gaba Shambyl, where I have a
station of elephant-hunters, these interesting birds exist in
greater numbers than on the Nile or the comparatively
deeper waters of the Bahr-el-Gazal. At Gaba Shambyl,
striking off directly west from the Nile, the country for the
first thirty miles rises with an almost imperceptible slope,
when it again decreases in elevation for a distance of from
40 Wonders of the Bird World
sixty to seventy miles. Here it becomes a large morass,
with occasional dry spots, which form so many islands after
the annual rains, in a sheet of water that from north to
south extends probably over one hundred and fifty miles,
having no outlet directly to the Nile, but, when the water
is at a certain height, overflowing into a channel connecting
it with the Bahr-el-Gazal. This reservoir, which is more
or less supplied with water all the year round, abounds in
reeds and thick brush, and is the favourite retreat and home
of the Baleniceps. The birds are here seen in clusters of
from a pair to perhaps one hundred together, mostly in
water, and when disturbed they fly low over the surface of
the latter, and settle at no great distance; but, if frightened
and fired at, they rise in flocks high in the air, and after
hovering and wheeling around, will settle on the highest
trees, and as long as their disturbers are near, will not
return to the water. Their roosting-place at night is, to the
best of my belief, on the ground. Their food consists
principally of fish and water-snakes, which they have been
seen by men to catch and devour. They will also feed on
the intestines of the dead animals, the carcases of which
they easily rip open with the strong hook of the upper
mandible.
“The breeding time of the Laleniceps is in the rainy
season during the months of July and August, and the spot
chosen is in the reeds or high grass immediately on the
water’s-edge, or on some small elevated and dry spots
entirely surrounded by water. The birds, before laying,
scrape a hole in the earth in which, without any lining of
grass or feathers, the female deposits her eggs. As many
as a dozen eggs have been found in the same nest. Num-
bers of these nests have been robbed by men of both eggs
and young, but the young birds so taken have invariably
died. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to rear them,
and more trouble than one can imagine, after two years’
The Whale-headed Stork (Baleniceps rex).
The Whale-headed Stork 43
perseverance I at last succeeded in hatching some eggs
under hens, which, at a considerable distance from Gala
Shambyl, I procured from the Raik Negroes. As soon as
I got the hens to lay and in due time to sit, by replacing
several of their eggs with half the number of those of the
Baleniceps, as fresh as possible from the nest, the locality
of which was previously known, I eventually succeeded in
hatching several birds. These ran about the premises of
my camp, and, to the discomfort of the poor hens, would
persist in performing all sorts of unchicken-like manceuvres
with their large beaks and wings in a small artificial
pool, constantly supplied with water by several negresses
retained in my service for their especial benefit. Negro
boys of the tribe (the Raik) were also employed to
supply their little pond with live fish, upon which, and
occasionally on the intestines of animals killed for our use
and chopped into small pieces, they were reared. As may
be supposed, the birds became the pets of my ‘ Bizouks,’
as I frequently called my Khartoumers; and as they grew
up, with extended wings and a rattle-like noise produced
by the snapping of their bills, they would follow them
round the large enclosure of my camp. The eggs are
white, or bluish-white with a chalky covering, and on
being held up to the light, the lining is seen to be of a dark
green.”
I cannot conclude this chapter on wonderful birds
without a reference to our old friend the Dodo (Drdus
ineptus). This quaint creature lived on the island of
Mauritius, where it was plentiful a little more than three
hundred years ago. Its unwieldy size and feebly developed
wings deprived the poor Dodo of any chance of survival on
the earth, as it was not able to fly and so escape from its
enemies; and the survivors of this interesting and anomalous
form of bird-life were annihilated by the sailors who visited
the island and brought cats and pigs with them, which
44 Wonders of the Bird World
must have hastened the process of extermination. The
Dodo was a gigantic, flightless, antique Pigeon, and appears
to have been confined to the island of Mauritius, where a
considerable number of its osteological remains have been
unearthed during the past forty years, so that more than
one nearly complete skeleton is to be found in Museums in
this country. Several drawings and paintings of the bird
are also preserved in various Institutions in Europe, but
the actual remains of the bird itself are very few, and no
perfect specimen of a stuffed Dodo is in any collection
to-day, though in the Oxford Museum is a head and right
foot, and the British Museum possesses a left foot.
Another head of the Dodo is in the Copenhagen Museum.
Many of the pictures representing the bird must have been
drawn from life, for it is certain that more than one speci-
men reached Europe alive. The sketch of the bird in the
present volume is drawn from the oil-painting in the British
Museum, which is believed to have been the work of Roe-
landt Savery, who died in 1639, and who painted several
pictures of the Dodo, apparently from living birds.
In the neighbouring islands of Réunion and Rodriguez
also lived two Didine birds. Of that which inhabited the
former island nothing remains but tradition, and no speci-
mens of any kind are known. Of the “Solitaire ” (Peszophaps
solitarius) of Rodriguez, many osteological remains have
been discovered in the caves of that island, and we also
know something of its habits from the writings of the old
Huguenot, Leguat, who landed on Rodriguez with other
refugees in 1691, and lived there for two years. Although
discredited and considered fabulous by many recent writers,
the description by Leguat of the Solitaire has been strongly
confirmed by the bones discovered by Sir Edward Newton
and other naturalists who have made explorations in the
island. The males are said to have fought for the females
with great pugnacity, and they possessed a weapon of
The Dodo 45
some power in the “little round mass” of bone on the
wing, which Leguat describes as being as “ big as a muskct-
ball.” These knobs have been found among the remains of
the birds, and Professor Newton says that the “number of
bones that had been broken and united during life contained
in the collections brought to this country is very consider-
The Dodo (Didus ineptis).
able, showing the effects of the cestus-like armature of the
wing.” }
The following is Leguat’s account of the bird and its
ways.”
! ‘Dictionary of Birds,’ p. 891.
2 © New Voyage to the East Indies,’ by Francis Leguat and his
companions. 8vo. London, 1708.
46 Wonders of the Bird World
“Ofall the Birds in the Island, the most remarkable is
that which goes by the Name of the ‘ Solitary,’ because ’tis
very seldom seen in Company. There are abundance of
them. The Feathers of the Males are of a brown-grey
Colour; the feet and beak are like a Turkey’s but a little
more crooked. They have scarce any Tail, but their Hind-
part cover’d with Feathers is Roundish, like the Crupper of
a Horse; they are taller than Turkeys. Their neck is straight,
and alittle longer in proportion than a Turkey’s when it lifts
up its Head. Its Eye is black and lively, and its Head
without Comb or Cop. They never fly, their wings are too
little to support the weight of their Bodies; they serve only
to beat themselves, and flutter when they call one another.
They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times together on
the same side, during the space of four or five Minutes; The
Motions of their Wings makes then a noise very like that of
a Rattle ; and one may hear it two hundred Paces off. The
Bone of their Wings grows greater towards the Extremity,
and forms a little round Mass under the Feathers, as big as
a Musket Ball; That and its Beak are the chief Defence of
this Bird. ’Tis very hard to catch it in the Woods, but
easy in open Places, because we run faster than they, and
sometimes we approach them without much Trouble. From
March to September they are extremely fat, and tast
admirably well, especially while they are young; some of
the Males weigh forty-five Pound.
“The Females are wonderfully beautiful, some fair, some
brown; I call them fair because they are of the colour of
fair Hair ; They have a sort of Peak like a Widow’s, upon
their Breasts, which is of a dun Colour. No one Feather
is stragling from the other all over their Bodies, they being
very careful to adjust themselves, and make them all even
with their Beaks. The Feathers on their Thighs are round
like shells at the end, and being there very thick, have an
agreeable effect: They have two Risings on their ‘ Craws,’
The Dodo 47
and the Feathers are whiter there than the rest, which livelily
Represents the fine Neck of a Beautiful Woman. They
walk with so much Stateliness and good Grace, that one
cannot help admiring and loving them; by which means
their fine Mein often saves their lives.
“Tho’ these Birds will sometimes very familiarly come
up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet
they will never grow Tame. As soon as they are caught
they shed Tears without Crying, and refuse all manner of
Sustenance till they die.
“We find in the Gizards of both Male and Female a
brown stone, of the bigness of a Hen’s egg ; ’tis somewhat
rough, flat on one side, and round on the other, heavy and
hard. We believe this stone was there when they were
hatch’d, for let them be never so young, you meet with it
always. They have never but one of ’em, and _ bestdes,
the Passage from the Craw to the Gizard is so narrow,
that a like Mass of half the bigness cou’d not pass. It
served to whet our knives, better than any other Stone
whatsoever.
“When these Birds build their Nests, they choose a clean
Place, gather together some Palm-Leaves for that purpose,
and heap them up a foot and a half high from the Ground,
on which they sit. They never lay but one Egg, which is
much bigger than that of a Goose. The Male and Female
both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatch’d
till at seven Wecks end. All the while they are sitting
upon it or are bringing up their young one, which is not
able to provide for its self in several Months, they will not
suffer any other Bird of their Species to come within two
hundred yards round of the Place: But what is very
singular is, The Males will never drive away the Females,
only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his
Wings to call the Female, and she drives the un-
welcome Stranger away, not leaving it till ’tis without her
48 Wonders of the Bird World
Bounds. The Females do’s the same as to the Males
whom she leaves to the Males, and he drives them away.
We have observ’d this several times, and I affirm it to
be true !
“The Combats between them on this occasion lasts
sometimes pretty long, because the Stranger only turns
about, and does not fly directly from the Nest. However
the others do not forsake it, till they have quite driv’n it
out of their Limits. After these Birds have rais’d their
young One, and left it to its self, they are always together,
which the other Birds are not, and tho’ they happen to
mingle with other Birds of the same Species, these two
Companions never disunite. We have often remark’d,
that some days after the young one leaves the Nest,
a Company of thirty or forty brings another young one
to it; and the new fledg’d Bird with its Father and
Mother joining with the Band, march to some bye Place.
We frequently follow’d them, and found that afterwards
the old ones went each their way alone, or in Couples,
and left the two young ones together, which we call’d a
Marriage.”
The above account, of the authenticity of which there is
no reason to doubt, introduces us to a type of Bird life now
extinct, but existing on the globe within historic times, and
a strange interest therefore attaches to the nearest of kin
to the Dodo which survives at the present moment. This
is the Toothed-billed Pigeon of Samoa (Didunculus strigi-
rostris). This bird, which is about the size of an ordinary
domestic Pigeon, is only found in the Navigator’s Islands,
as Samoa is sometimes called. It has perfectly-formed
wings, but until recently it never used them, as it had no
natural enemies in its island home, and was accustomed
not only to live on the ground, but to breed in colonies and
deposit its eggs on the side of a hill. As Samoa became
more civilized, however, the usual accompaniments of
Tooth-billed Pigeon 49
civilization prevailed in the shape of cats and rats, the
former devouring the birds and the latter their eggs, and
speedy extermination appeared to be the fate in store for
the Didunculus. It then appears that the Pigeons began
to use their wits, and did not quite see why they should be
wiped off the face of the earth, as their distant relatives the
Dodo and the Solitaire had been, and they not only began
to use their wings to save themselves, but changed their
mode of nidification, and took to building their nests in
trees. The Rev. S. J. Whitmee, who was for longa mission-
ary in Samoa, credits the Dedunculus with a high intel-
ligence, and writes—“It has probably been frightened
when roosting, or during incubation, by attacks of ¢ats, and
has sought safety in the trees. Learning, from frequent
repetition of the fright, that the ground is a dangerous
place, it has acquired the habit of building, roosting, and
feeding on the high trees ; and this change of habit is now
operating for the preservation of this interesting bird, which
a few years ago was almost extinct.” ?
Amongst the Swimming Birds thcre are also some
remarkable forms, and some of the most curious of these
are the Darters or Snake-Birds (P/otws), which are found
in the temperate and tropical portions of both hemispheres.
These long-necked birds are allied to our Cormorants
(Phatacrocorax), and have much similarity in habits to the
latter, though they are inhabitants of rivers and swamps,
rather than of the sea-coasts like the Cormorants and
Shags. The latter have a remarkably strong hooked bill,
recalling that of an Accipitrine bird, whereas the Darters
have a long thin bill which is furnished with saw-like edges
turned at a backward angle like a barb, so that a fish
transfixed by the unerring aim of the Darter’s bill has no
chance of escape, and with this bill a wounded bird is
capable of inflicting a severe wound on its captor. In
‘ ‘Proceedings’ of the Zoological Society, 1874, p. 184.
E
50 Wonders of the Bird World
addition to this barb-bearing bill, the Darter has a very
curious “kink” in the neck, in the region of the eighth and
ninth vertebra, which accounts for the irregular curve
which is seen in the bird’s neck as it sits at rest. On
diving after a fish, which it does with extraordinary celerity,
the Darter pierces its prey through with the bill, for by
reason of the muscles which are attached to the “ kink,”
the neck is let go, as if it were a spring, and is straightened
out in the act of striking. The name of “ Snake-bird” is
given to the Darter, from its habit of swimming with the
body submerged, so that only the long, snake-like head
and neck are seen above the surface of the water. In the
Fish-house at the Zoological Gardens an example of a
Darter is generally to be found, and the marvellous diving
powers of the bird can there be studied, as well as its
activity in securing a fish. It should be noticed that a
Darter propels itself under water by means of its feet, and
does not use the wings at all.
During the breeding season the male displays consider-
able power of “showing-off” to his mate, and flies in the air
before her in zig-zag courses. The nests are built of sticks
and placed on trees, often in close proximity and in the
company of Herons and Cormorants, the eggs being chalky-
white like those of the latter birds. Pelicans likewise
have these chalky eggs, and in those of Cormorants and
Grebes the real colour of the egg is greenish below, but this
colour can only be observed by removing the outer layer
of chalk.
A relation of the Darter is the Frigate Bird, often
called the “ Man-of-War Bird.” There are two species of
the genus Fregata, a large and a small one, /. aguzla and
fF. minor. Both are inhabitants of the tropical seas, and
are remarkable for their powers of flight, and for their
somewhat raptorial habits, for they pursue the smaller Gulls
and Gannets and force them to disgorge their hard-earned
The African Darter ‘1
prey. Mr. Fritz Jansen says that the Frigate Bird of the
Ellice Islands is domesticated by the natives, and when the
The African Darter (Plotus leraillanti).
Rev. S. J. Whitmee was in those islands in 1870 he saw
scores of them about the villages sitting on long perches
es Wonders of the Bird World
erected for them near the beach. The natives procure the
young birds and tie them by the leg and feed them until
they are tame. Afterwards they let them loose, and they
go out to sea to get their food, and return to their perches
in the villages at intervals. The statements recently
made by an adventurous traveller in Northern Australia,
that he made tin discs from the bottom of disused milk-
tins, scrawled on them in different languages the letters
which announced his derelict condition on a desert island,
and then tied the discs to the necks of Pelicans, which
were in hundreds upon the latter, can scarcely be credited ;
but Mr. Whitmee informed the writer that a post had
been established on the Ellice Islands by some of the
missionaries, and that the Frigate Birds were the postmen.
Like our own Carrier Pigeons, they were used to take letters
from one island to another, and he himself had more than
once seen letters arrive in a quill which had been tied to
the birds.
The old male of the Frigate Bird has a red pouch, which
it is able to distend to anenormous size. The bird, figured
in our sketch (p. 24), was presented to the Natural
History Museum by Captain Milner, who brought it home
in the freezing chamber of his vessel. Much has been
written about the buoyancy of the Frigate Bird’s flight, and
this can easily be believed, for the body appears to be full
of air-cells. When the above specimen arrived at the
Museum, it was to all intents and purposes as if it had
been freshly shot, and by inserting a quill down the throat,
we were able to inflate the whole skin of the bird, and
there was scarcely a part which was not distended with air
between the skin and the actual body.
A very remarkable instance of a species which can fly
when it is young, but loses the power of flight when adult,
is seen in the Steamer-Duck (TZachyeres cinereus) of the
Straits of Magellan. Mention of this Duck occurs in the
The Steamer-Duck 53
narratives of Captain Cook and the early navigators, but
the best résumé of the history of the species is that
given by Professor Cunningham, from whose work, the
‘Naturalist in the Straits of Magellan, I take the following
extract—
“The first detailed account of the habits of the Steamer-
Duck is given by that intelligent and accurate observer of
nature, Captain Philip Parker King, in his narrative of the
voyage of the Adventure and Beagle. He states that, at
Eagle Bay, beyond Cape San Isidro, in the Strait of
Magellan, he ‘saw, for the first time, that most remarkable
bird the Steamer-Duck,’ and observes that, ‘ before steam-
boats were in general use, this bird was denominated, from
its swiftness in skimming over the surface of the water, the
“race-horse,” a name which occurs frequently in Cook’s,
Byron’s, and other voyages. It is a gigantic duck, the
largest I have met with. It has the lobated hind toe placed
far backwards, and other characteristics of the oceanic
Ducks. The principal peculiarity of this bird is the short-
ness and remarkably small size of the wings, which, not
having sufficient power to raise the body, serve only to
propel it along, rather than through, the water, and are used
like the paddles of a steam-vessel. Aided by these and
its strong broad-webbed feet, it moves with astonishing
velocity. It would not be an exaggeration to state its
speed at from twelve to fifteen milesan hour. The peculiar
form of the wing, and the short rigid feathers which cover
it, together with the power this bird possesses of remaining
a considerable time under water, constitute a striking link
between the Ducks and the Penguins. It has been noticed
by many former navigators. The largest we found measured
forty inches from the extremity of the bill to that of the
tail, and weighed thirteen pounds; but Captain Cook
‘mentions in his voyage, that the weight of one was twenty-
nine pounds. It is very difficult to kill them, on account
54 Wonders of the Bird World
of their wariness and the thick coat of feathers, which is
impenetrable by anything smaller than swan-shot. The
flavour of their flesh is so strong and fishy, that at first we
killed them solely for specimens. Five or six months,
however, on salt provisions taught many to think such food
palatable, and the scamen never lost an opportunity of
eating them. I have preferred these Ducks to salt beef, as
a preventive against scurvy, rather than from liking their
taste. King also distinguished two species of Steamer-
Duck, whereof one (the Anas brachypltera of Latham,
Micropterus brachypterus of Quoy and Gaimard), was
entirely incapable of flight; and the other, which he denom-
inated by the specific name of Anas fatachonicus, was stated
to be smaller in size than the A. drachypterus, possessed
of volant powers, and differing also in other points relating
to the plumage. Mr. Darwin, who describes the bird as he
saw it at the Falklands, mentions but one species, the
original A. drachyptera, which he states to be incapable
of flight.
“T will now pass on to offer a few remarks on the bird,
as derived from numerous observations which I had oppor-
tunities of making with regard to it at the Falkland Islands,
in the Strait of Magellan, and on the west coast of Pata-
gonia. At the outset I may state that, though undoubtedly
some Steamer-Ducks fly, and others appear to be cither
wholly incapable of flight, or do not make use of their
faculties in this respect, it is, nevertheless, my belief there
is only one species of the genus J/7cropterus, and that the
variations in size, capability of flight, and colouring of
plumage, are chiefly dependent on the age of the birds.
Secondly, it is my opinion that it is the young birds that
can fly, and that the power of flight or the disposition
to fly diminishes with age. I have arrived at this
conclusion after the examination of a number of speci-
mens of volant and non-volant birds, having ascer-
The Steamer-Duck 55
tained by a careful inspection of the condition of the
skeleton, and other points in the structure of the volant
specimens (the plumage of which entirely corresponded
with King’s short description of J/tcropterus patachonicus),
that they were all immature individuals (probably the young
of the year), and having as invariably found that the
non-volant specimens were full-grown birds.
“ The average length of the adult birds may be stated as
about thirty inches, and I do not think that I ever met with
specimens measuring more than three fect from the tip of
the bill to the tip of the tail,so that Lam inclined to believe
that the specimen mentioned by King as forty inches in
length was of exceptional size, and I feel no doubt that
there must have been some mistake as regards the birds
stated by Cook to weigh twenty-nine pounds.
“The Steamer-Duck is very plentiful on the shores of
the Falkland Islands, in the Strait of Magellan, and in the
channels of Western Patagonia, as well as at Chiloe, which
is the northernmost locality where I have seen it. It is
generally to be observed in pairs, or small flocks of six or
seven individuals, stationed on -the rocks, or swimming
about in the extensive beds of the ‘kelp, which girdles the
coast in most spots; but, cccasionally, large flocks com-
posed of many hundreds are to be met with. When
undisturbed in the water they swim quietly along, producing
two peculiar notes—that of the male being a sort of mew
rapidly repeated, while that of the female is a kind of deep
growl—and diligently searching the fronds of the kelp for
the animals to be found thereon, or diving for mussels,
which appear to be one of their staple articles of diet, as I
always found fragments of the shells in the stomachs of
those which I examined. The stomach is a most powerful
organ, with very thick muscular coats, and the lower part
of the windpipe or trachea of the male possesses an enlarge-
ment of considerable size. This, which is likewise to be
56 Wonders of the Bird World
met with in the males of many other species of Ducks,
serves to modify the voice, At the Falkland Islands, in
common with many other birds, the Steamer-Ducks are
much tamer than they are in the Strait of Magellan, allow-
ing the observer to come within a few yards of them without
accelerating their speed. When alarmed at the prospect of
impending danger, however, they lose no time in getting
up steam, paddling through the water at a marvellous rate
by dint of flapping their little wings, the motion of which
is so excessively rapid, that it is difficult to convince one’s
self that they are not revolving, leaving a long wake of
foam like that produced by a miniature steamer behind
them, and not ceasing this method of progression till a safe
distance has intervened between them and the object of
their dread. They often assist their escape in addition by
diving, and coming up to the surface at a distance of many
yards in a direction upon which it is impossible to calculate,
when they show their great heads for a moment, and then
repeat the manceuvre. Though the rate of their speed has,
I think, been considerably over-estimated by Captain King,
it is yet so great as to render it impossible for a boat,
however well manned, to overtake them, except by hemming
them in to some small cove, where a gun may be used with
tolerable chance of success. It is in general in such situ-
ations that those birds which can fly take to the wing, and
those which cannot have recourse to their diving powers.
Even when hit they very frequently escape, for unless they
receive a very heavy charge of shot, their coat of down and
feathers protects them from serious injury. Their nests, in
general placed on a sloping bank near the sea, and under
the shelter of a low bush, are formed principally of grass.
In these four or five large cream-coloured eggs (the dimen-
sions of which may be roughly stated as three and a half
by two and a quarter inches) are deposited, and covered
with a layer of soft grey down. The young brood appear
The Penguins oy
to be tended by the parent birds for a considerable period
after they leave the egg, and may often be seen swimming
after them. Like the old birds, they swim and dive actively,
coming up ifter the plunge at a long distance.”
Perhaps the most wonderful of all the birds which live
on the globe at the present day are the Penguins, which
constitute the Order Sphenzsctformes. Their rock-haunting
and fishing habits, as well as the feeble development of
their wings, have caused them to be associated in the
minds of naturalists with the Auks (Adciformes) of the
Northern Hemisphere, which the Penguins in a manner
represent in the Antarctic Seas. A slight acquaintance,
however, with these two forms of birds is sufficient to
dispel any idea of their affinity. However small the wings
of the Auks may be, they are actual wings, and not
“flippers” as in the Penguins. The latter birds cannot
fly, whereas the Guillemots, Razor-bills, Puffins and other
Auks can fly well, the exception having been the Great
Auk (Plautus tmpennis), which, as is well known, was a
flightless bird.
Penguins may, therefore, be admitted to form an Order
of Birds by themselves, with no actually close ally at the
present day. On land they progress clumsily, and walk in
an upright position, but in the sea they are surprisingly
active, and by the aid of their fin-like wings they urge
themselves through the water with as much speed as some
other birds traverse the air, their food consisting of fish
and other marine animals. In swimming they keep their
feet outstretched behind, never using them to propel their
bodies through the water. Although found at considerable
distances from land, they betake themselves to desolate
and rocky islands for the purposes of nidification, and vast
colonies of Penguins are often found on some of the islands
of the Antarctic Ocean. One species, and that the largest
58 Wonders of the Bird World
of the Order, the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forstert),
is only found in the region of the icy barrier towards the
South Pole. The King Penguin (4. patachonica), of which
the accompanying illustration is a portrait, is somewhat
more widely distributed, and is found from the Falkland
Islands and the Straits of Magellan to Kerguelen and the
islands off the south of New Zealand. Young Penguins
are thickly covered with down, and the King Penguins
which have lived in the Zoological Gardens have retained
their clothing of brown down until they have almost
reached the size of the adults. The upright position in
which the birds habitually sit requires undoubtedly much
strength of limb, and we find that, in the Penguins, the legs
are very short and that the metatarsus is extremely broad
and powerful, the three principal bones being more distinct
throughout life than in other birds, and divided one from
the other by deep grooves. The whole body of the Penguin
is covered with small scale-like feathers, differing from those
of other birds in the great breadth of the shaft and the
small size of the vane; and as there are no quills or
flight-feathers, the wings are more like fins in appearance.
The bones are also modified in a parallel manner to the
anterior limbs of Whales and Porpoises, being flattened
and jointed in such a way that there is very little allowance
for motion at the elbow and wrist, while the pollex or first
digit is immovably fused with that of the second. Another
remarkable peculiarity in the Penguin’s osteology is the
great breadth of the scapula or shoulder-blade, all these
modifications of the skeleton tending to an enormous
increase of swimming power.
The species alluded to in the present chapter are only
a few out of hundreds of others I might have chosen, each
exhibiting some striking characteristic, and that I have
not exhausted the wonderful birds will be seen in the
Rookery of King-Penguins (Aftenodytes patachonica),
Wonderful Birds 61
following chapters, where other species, just as remarkable
for their form or habits, will be treated of. In these intro-
ductory pages, however, I have selected certain of the
most divergent types of Bird life, and I hope that the
illustrations of some of the wonderful forms which have
lived on the surface of the globe in bygone times will have
proved not without interest to the reader.
CHAPTER III
DECORATION IN BIRDS
The Splendid Sun-bird.
The difference in the colouring of the sexes—Evolution of Species—
Sun-birds—Birds of Paradise —Lyre-birds—Motmots—Puffins—
The methods by which Birds acquire their plumage.
THE decoration of a bird is, as a rule, confined to the
adult male. The females and the young birds are soberly
coloured in comparison with the plumage of the old male,
and that this is the general rule throughout the Class Aves
is a well-known fact. As will be seen, however, later on,
there are some remarkable exceptions, in which the female
has the pre-eminence in ornamentation. The acquisition
of brighter colours by the male, usually so pronounced in
birds, probably depends upon sexual selection in the past,
62
Decorative Plumage 63
wherein the more brilliantly plumaged males would have
possessed advantages over other males which had not
these points to recommend them to the notice of the
females. But that such an acquisition of brilliant colouring
must have taken a long period of time to accomplish, is
also evident, and even if the idea of sexual selection be
mere theory, some of the facts which one meets with in a
daily study of birds are interesting enough to make one
hazard a possible explanation as to how such a develop-
ment in the decoration of the male may have proceeded,
even if it be impossible to give in detail the exact method
by which it was accomplished. That the decorative
plumage of the male bird is appreciated by himscelf and is
used by him as an attractive presentation to win the favour
of the female, must, it seems to me, be taken as an
undoubted fact, whether it be the streaming plumes of a
Bird of Paradise; the hundred-eyed wing of an Argus
Pheasant; the coloured, and, to human notions, somewhat
ugly, wattles ofa Turkey or Domestic Fowl; the feathered
shield of a Ruff; or the naked appendage to the head of a
Bell-bird. The way in which the male birds show them-
selves off to the females is a proof that they believe in the
charm of their decorations. That sexual selection has
played a great part in the development of brilliant
plumage, seems to me a most feasible conclusion, and a
reasonable conjecture as to how the evolution of species
may have taken place, can even be hazarded. During the
process of writing the ‘Catalogue of Birds in the British
Museum, which contains a description of all the species of
birds known up to the time of writing the volumes, I must
have handled nearly half a million of specimens, and in the
volumes written by mysclf I have described the plumages
of not less than 5000 different species, and have given
references to the books in which they are mentioned, with
a list of the specimens contained in the National Collection.
64 Wonders of the Bird World
This has been an experience vouchsafed to no other ornith-
ologist, and I have consequently had many opportunities of
observing the wonderful complications and developments
of plumage in the species I have had to describe. I have
often regretted that I never followed the advice of my old
friend and Mentor, Darwin, in making a series of notes, as
I went along, on the laws which seem to prevail with regard
to the style of colour in various groups of birds. Of late
years, however, ornithologists have generally recognized
that the question of colouration must be equally considered
with that of structure in birds, and its importance has been
universally admitted. Nor can the relations of the Orders
and Families of Birds one to another ever be properly
appreciated until every point of their economy has been
considered, and certainly types of colouration form an
important feature in classification.
The mention of the name of Charles Darwin recalls to
me the time when first I knew him. I was then the
Librarian of the Zoological Society in Hanover Square,
and, though little more than a boy at the time, I was hard
at work on my Monograph of the Kingfishers. Nothing
could exceed the kindness of the great naturalist towards
young beginners, and I never felt afraid of appealing
to him for his opinion on any matter which puzzled
me. When I was appointed to the British Museum
he was still the same kind friend to me, listening to my
propositions with the utmost patience and courtesy, and
always giving me encouragement, which was very welcome
at the time, and is now one of my most cherished memories.
In those days I was young and full of enthusiasm, and I
always told him of the work which I proposed to do in
different branches of ornithology, whereupon he gave me
this sound advice as to the method I should pursue, and
I now pass it on to the younger school of ornithologists,
as coming from the lips of the great master himself. He
Darwin’s Advice 65
urged me to keep separate portfolios relating to the various
heads of the subject I was studying, one for “ Geographical
Distribution,” another for “ Moult,” “ Migration,” etc., and
into these portfolios were to be cast the memoranda and
references relating to each subject as I came across the
facts. When the portfolios grew bulky in course of time,
it would then be seen whether the accumulated material
was sufficient to be arranged in order, and the results
published to the world. This Darwinian method of work,
which he informed me was the one adopted by himself,
seems to me to be an admirable plan not only for scientific
workers, but for all those engaged in the study of any
difficult subject. It was also a great privilege in my early
days to possess the friendship of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace,
who was always ready to help me with his notes and
experiences of bird-life on the Amazon and in the Eastern
Archipelago. Without the loan of the specimens in his
collection, it would have been impossible to have completed
my Monograph of the Kingfishers.
Of the process of development from one form to another
we can but forma guess, but there are one or two instances
which occur to me which may be briefly noticed as of
some interest. To take the family Mectarinide@ or Sun-
birds, for example. These little birds inhabit the tropical
portions of the Old World, and are found throughout
Africa and India; thence they occur eastwards to Southern
China, and southwards to the Malay Archipelago and
Northern Australia. In their metallic plumage, extensile
tongue, and even to a certain extent in their habits, they
resemble the Humming-birds ( 7vochi/z) of America, but the
resemblance is merely superficial, and the two Families have
little in common with each other as far as structure and
affinity are concerned. The Humming-birds are Picarian,
their relations being with the Swifts (Cyfse/z), while the
Sun-birds are thoroughly Passerine birds and not unlike Tits
F
66 Wonders of the Bird World
in their ways. They are, however, allied to the Honey-
suckers (Meliphagide) to a great extent, and have an
extensile tongue. Like the Humming-birds, they are
attracted to flowers in order to feed on the insects which
frequent the latter, but they do not poise themselves in
the air or hover in front of the blossoms like the Humming-
birds, but cling like Tits to the stems of the flowers and
extract the nectar and capture the tiny insects with their
long tongue. Some of the finest Sun-birds equal in the
beauty of their metallic plumage the grandest of the
Humming-birds, as will be. seen by our illustration of the
splendid Sun-bird (Crnnyris splendidus) of West Africa
(p. 62). Here nearly the whole plumage is metallic, and
one principal decorative feature is to be seen in the bright
yellow pectoral tufts which stand out on each side of the
breast. These yellow tufts play a great part in the orna-
mentation of the male Sun-birds, and however small may
be the amount of metallic colouring, the yellow tufts are
always present, and hence we may argue that it is an
ornament donned originally by some ancestral species and
retained by the most brilliant of the succeeding species to
the present day.
Thus we find the divergence of decorative colour
especially marked in the males, for the females are almost
, invariably birds of dull plumage,
and the young males at first
resemble their mothers. From this
point of view the characters of
some of the African species are
remarkably interesting. In C. hart-
Jaubt from West Africa (Fig. 1)
pectoral tufts are present, but the
colour of the upper parts is dark olive and the breast grey.
Metallic plumage only appears on the throat. The female
is entirely plain. In C. cyanolemus (Fig. 2) the general tint
1. The male of Cénnyris hartlaubi.
Sun-birds 67
of the plumage in both sexes is also dull, but, besides
the yellow pectoral tufts of the male, there is also a further
development of metallic colour, which here extends to
the forehead as well as the throat. In the male of C
retchenbacht (Fig. 3) we find a plain-plumaged species, but
with still more metallic decoration than in C. cyanolemus,
for it extends not only over the crown of the head but
over the sides of the face, throat, and fore-neck, while
as usual the pectoral tufts are still in strong evidence;
2. The male of C. cyanolemus. 3. The male of C. rerchenbachi.
and other species can be quoted in which a gradual
development of metallic colour has taken place in the
male, until we meet with the beautiful C. splendidus here
figured, which rivals any Humming-bird in the beauty of
its metallic tints. If there is any possibility of the correct-
ness of such a theory of development as I have indicated,
the question may be asked: Is there a species known
in which both sexes are alike, and in which the male
resembles the female in plumage? Iam able to state that
there is such a species, in fact more than one, so that
we may imagine that these represent some of the original
and ancient forms of MVectarinide, in which the sexes
were alike plain-coloured, and the metallic plumage has
been gradually evolved by sexual selection or some other
cause to their present beautiful livery. Such olive-coloured
species exist in C. oftvaceus of South Africa and C. odscurus
68 Wonders of the Bird World
(Fig. 4) of West Africa, the males of which are olive in
colour like the females of the majority of Sun-birds.
Both sexes are alike plain-
45
there are other birds ~~ “¢
which have enamelled
ornamentation, such as
the Curl-crested Toucan
(Peeroglossus beauharnasii) of the Amazons, the Curl-
crested Cuckoo (Lepidogrammus cumingt) of the Philip-
pines, while even in Europe we have the Waxwing
(Ampelis garrulus), which has wax-like appendages to the
secondary quills and the tail-feathers. In all of the
“
King of Saxony’s Bird of Paradise.
se Wonders of the Bird World
instances last mentioned, however, the ornamentation is
produced by an elongation or flattening out of the shaft of
the feather, so that the result is achieved by a somewhat
similar process to that which produces the wire-like tail-
feathers of the Birds of Paradise.
I mentioned above that it was not known whether the
Birds of Paradise themselves manipulated the shredding
of the webs of their shaft-like plumes. It seems impossible
to believe that they could possibly do this, for in the case
of the Six-plumed Birds of Paradise (Parotza), it is difficult
to understand how the birds could ever attain their object,
seeinz that the six plumes spring from the sides of the
head, and grow, three on each side, to a length which the
bird would find it difficult to reach with its bill. The
species too have differently-sized rackets at the ends, these
being large in P. sexpennis and very small in P. carole.
Again, in the King Bird of Paradise (Crcznnurus regius), the
shaft of the central tail-feather is thin and wire-like, and
ends in a metallic-green “boss” at the tip, this being of a
circular form, the feather being curved round and round
upon itself. Yet in younger specimens of the King Bird of
Paradise we see that this metallic “ boss” begins like a true
feather, and curves more or less towards the point, so as
to become sickle-shaped. We must accept, therefore, the
theory of Dr. Meyer with regard to Paradisea minor,
that it takes several moults before the perfect tail-feather is
donned, and certainly I have seen specimens of C. regius
in full moult, with the green-bossed central tail-feather just
sprouting from the “pen,” so that it is evident that when
once the metallic “ boss” has been attained, it is resumed in
its perfect condition at each moult, and never returns to the
feathered stage. A propos of the Birds of Paradise and
their moult, it must be said that even.in this function they
are most remarkable birds and totally unlike Crows, for
they seem to moult their feathers in great patches, so that
The Lyre-bird ak
when the new ones are developed, large portions of the
bird’s body are covered with pen-feathers, the sheaths of
which are as conspicuous as they are in young Kingfishers
and other Picarian Birds.
While on the subject of gaudy decoration in birds, we
The Lyre-bird (Jfenura superba).
must notice one instance of the ornamentation of the tail,
which is equal to anything exhibited by the Birds of
Paradise, or by any other bird in existence. This is seen in
the Lyre-birds of Australia, and they are among the many
bizarre types of birds which are found in that portion of
the globe. At first sight the Lyre-bird looks like a kind of
76 Wonders of the Bird World
Game-bird, and especially resembles some of the Megapodes
in colour. Itis, moreover, furnished with feet of large sizc,
which again remind us of the Mound-builders. There can,
however, be no doubt that the A/7enwra is a Passerine Bird,
and not 2 Game-bird at all. There are three kinds of
Lyre-bird, the common species, JZ. superba, Queen Victoria’s
Lyre-bird (7. victorie), and Prince Albert’s Lyre-bird
(MW. alberti), all of them occupying different districts of the
Australian continent, and each having its peculiar distri-
bution. Owing to the beauty of the species and the interest
attaching to them, the birds have been much shot down of
late years, and in some places are in danger of extinction.
Full-plumaged males are very rare in collections, as it takes
four years before they gain their complete livery, and
even then the beautiful tail is moulted after a very short
time. The Lyre-birds, on account of their wonderful tail,
must be reckoned among the most fantastically ornamented
birds in the world, and no other bird quite equals them for
peculiar decoration. The filamentous character of the long
feathers is produced in the usual way, viz. by the absence
of barbules or hooklets, and the barbs, which constitute the
chief part of the web of a feather, are situated at about a
quarter of an inch from one another, so that there is a very
wide interval between them, and this imparts a hair-like
appearance. In this same way the light feathery plumes
of the Birds of Paradise can be accounted for, as they show
the same filmy character as does the Lyre-bird’s tail.
Notwithstanding the solid aspect of the broad outer
feathers in the latter, their structure is one of the most
wonderful of any bird. The outer web is very narrow, and
the inner web broad and of a chestnut colour. At regular
intervals appear to be notches of light pattern, but on closer
examination it will be seen that these are not real notches,
but are intervals in the feather where there are no barbules,
so that these interspaces look more or less transparent.
The Lyre-bird a
When proceeding through the brush-wood the male
Lyre-bird carries his tail horizontally, but on his playing-
ground it is erected and displayed to its fullest capacity.
The dancing-ground is a small round hillock, according to
Gould, on which the male is constantly trampling, at the
same time erecting and spreading his tail in the most
graceful manner, sometimes pouring out his own natural
notes, at others mocking those of other birds, and even the
howling of the Dingo. The nest is a domed structure, and
not unlike that of a gigantic Wren’s nest. The nestling
is an extraordinary little creature for a young Passerine
bird, for it is covered with dense fluffy down, like that of a
Storm-Petrel. No other Perching Bird has such a nestling,
and that alone is sufficient to show that, independently of
their wonderful tail-ornament, the Lyre-birds have other
peculiarities which justify their being placed in a separate
Order of Birds, Menure. Queen Victoria’s Lyre-bird is
said to construct a nest in every way recalling that of our
European Dipper, which makes not only a real nest but an
outer structure as well. It builds a small nest of strong
fine roots, lined with feathers, and about five inches high
and ten inches in diameter. The outer covering is composed
of sticks, grass, and moss and leaves, and forms a projection
over the genuine nest, the opening of which is in the side,
and Dr. Becker says that the female always enters back-
wards, with her tail laid over her back, and with watchful
eye and ear, keeps her head in the direction of the opening.
A nestling is described by the same observer, as still
covered with down, though it was a bird of more than a
foot in length, and had feet nearly as big as those of its
parent. It is evident that the young Lyre-birds must
remain in the nest for a considerable time in a helpless
condition, as the specimen in question lived with Dr.
Becker for eight days, during most of which time it slept
in a nest of moss, and became quite tame, accepting all
78 Wonders of the Bird World
kinds of food, but as to its walking, Dr. Becker says—
‘When it rose, it did so with difficulty, the wings assisting.
Once on its legs, it ran sometimes, often falling down,
however, in consequence of the want of strength to move
properly the large and heavy bones of its legs.’ When
adult, however, the Lyre-birds have immense strength in
their legs, and have been known to jump from the ground
to a branch of a tree fully ten feet off, and then bound by
similar leaps to the other branches.
Prince Albert’s Lyre-bird is said to be superior in voice
and power of imitation to the common species, and Mr. A.
A. Leycester, in his account of the bird on the Richmond
River in New South Wales, states that “one of these birds
had taken up its quarters within two hundred yards of a
sawyers hut, and he had made himself perfect in all the
noises of the sawyer’s homestead—the crowing of the cocks,
the cackling of the hens, the barking and howling of the
dogs, and even the painful screeching of the sharpening
or filing of the saw.” Like many other birds of beautiful
decoration, the Lyre-bird has its playing-ground in which
to disport, and each pair of birds appears to have its own
particular district, and does not encroach upon that of its
neighbours. I have already alluded to the playing-ground
of Menura superba, and the manceuvres of JZ. albert? would
seem to be very similar, except that its song is finer than
in the other species, just as it is also a better mimic. Mr.
Leycester has watched these birds performing, and says
that, when singing, they spread their tails over their head
like a Peacock, and droop their wings to the ground, and
at the same time scratch and peck up the earth.
Although in the case of many species which have rackets
or wire-like feathers, we are ignorant as to the fact whether
the birds assist in trimming them with their bill, with
the Motmots (J7omotus) the case is different, for here we
know that the birds do actually trim their centre tail-
Laboratory of Urnithology
159 Sapsucker Woods Road
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York 14850
The Motmot 79
feathers so as to make them form a racket at the end.
This has been shown to be the case by Mr. Osbert Salvin,
who instances that of a young Motmot imbued with the
Neg
4 TY
A Motmot at work.
hereditary instinct that it had to nibble the web away from
its longest tail-feathers, but was evidently puzzl.d to find
the right one, as at first all the tail-feathers are of the same
length. Thus it had nibbled at one feather after the other
80 Wonders of the Bird World
and chipped pieces out of them, until at last the centre
feathers extended beyond the others, and on these the bird
finally commenced to form its racket. How glad it must
have been when the two centre tail-feathers began to extend
beyond the others, so that it knew exactly on which it had
to work! Motmots are inhabitants of the Neotropical
region, that is to say, the whole of Central America south
of the plateau of Mexico, and the entire continent of South
America. Throughout the greater part of this region
Motmots are found, excepting the extreme south. They
are Picarian birds, allied to the Kingfishers, and have a
saw-like edge to the bill, which may be of use to the young
bird in its first moult, when the necessity of trimming
its central tail-feathers first impresses itself on its mind.
In habits the Motmots are rather sluggish, and they
might be weli called “ Pendulum Birds,” from the way in
which they sit at rest on a bough, swaying their tail back-
wards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock. They
make their nest, like a Kingfisher, in the hole of a bank,
tunnelling to a distance of from six to nine feet, and de-
positing their four white eggs in a chamber where a few
dry sticks constitute the so-called “nest.”
One of the most interesting examples of the assumption
of decoration during the breeding season is seen in the
Puffin (Fratercula arctica) of the British coasts. This is
one of the Auks (A/c7d@), and belongs to the same family
as the Great Auk (Plautus zimpennis), which, owing to its
inability to fly, its feeble wings being insufficient to carry
its large body through the air, has become extinct during
the present century. The Puffin, on the other hand, is a
bird of strong powers of flight, and is often to be seen far
out at sea, like the Guillemots, Razorbills, and other
members of the family of Auks. Our common Puffin has
the remarkable habit of moulting certain portions of its
bill. The latter in summer is grey, crossed with bands of
The Puffin 81
yellow, and with the tip carmine. There is an orange
wattle at the corner of the mouth, and above and below
the eye is a grey horny wart or protuberance. These
wattles are shed, as
also isa large por-
tion of the brightly-
coloured bill, these
parts being renewed
in the following
summer. A similar
phenomenon is seen
in the American
Knob-billed Pelican
(Pelecanus trachy-
rhynchus), which,
during the breeding
season, has a horny
excrescence on its
bill which — after-
wards falls off.
The phenomenon
of a bird assuming
ornamental features
on its face during
the breeding season,
and then moulting
them like ordinary
birds moult their
feathers when the
season comes for
their change of plu-
mage, is certainly a
wonderful one. The method by which birds assume their
different phases of colouration has as yet not been suffici-
ently studied, but the most frequent mode of change is
G
A Puffin in the nesting season, showing the facial
ornamentation afterwards shed.
82 Wonders of the Bird World
undoubtedly by a complete moult. Most of the species we
are familiar with as summer visitors moult their feathers
before undertaking their autumn migration, and in nearly
every case they cast their old feathers and go south with
perfectly renewed plumage. The young birds, though they
may be thickly spotted and differ from the adults in this
respect, as, for instance, does our Common Flycatcher (J/usez-
capa grisola), leave us in a full dress indistinguishable from
that of the parent bird. The young of the Warblers, such
as the Willow-Warbler, Chiffchaff, Great Sedge-Warbler
and others, can only be distinguished from the old birds
in their winter habitats by showing a little more yellow
tinge on the under surface, and even this is not observable
in the following spring, when young and old return in
perfectly full plumage. This is, however, because the
Warblers have a spring moult also, and, before they
return to their northern breeding-haunts, they cast all the
feathers with which they departed, and return to us in the
freshest of new plumage. This is certainly true of our
familiar migrants, and Thrushes (Zurdid@) can be dis-
tinguished from Warblers (Syluzid@) by the fact of their
having spotted young, and by their having only an autumn
moult, and not a spring moult as well. Thus our Robin
and Nightingale are Thrushes and not Warblers, as they
have so often been called. An ordinary species, like
our Song-Thrush (Z7urdus musicus), begins its life with a
spotted plumage, and then moults in its first autumn to a
dress so like that of the old birds, that it is only by the
indication of small spots on the tips of the wing-coverts
that it can be determined as a bird of the year. The
Swallows, however, do not moult in the autumn like
other migrants, but leave Europe in the same plumage in
which they arrived in the previous spring, while the young
birds go south in the feathering they acquire before leaving
the nest. Thus the old birds depart in a very ragged
Moulting of Birds 83
costume, worn and battered with long service in the nesting
and bringing up of the young, and by the time that they
have effected their retreat to their winter home in Africa,
they are scarcely recognizable as the brilliant little birds
which come to us in the spring. The blue plumage is
worn and bleached to a dull brown, the red on the forehead
and throat become white, and the flight-feathers and those
of the tail are worn out and jagged. Some specimens
killed in the late autumn in England, show here and there
a feather in process of renewal by moult, but as a rule all
the Swallows commence their moult in December, when
they are far from Europe, and it is not until February that
they have gained their new and beautiful plumage, when
they at once begin their journey northward.
Many birds seem to be always more or less in moult,
notably Gulls and Birds of Prey, and it is interesting to
see that complete correspondence in the shedding of the
wing-feathers takes place, so that if the sixth primary is
being renewed on one wing, it will be found that the same
primary is also in process of renewal on the other wing.
But besides this regularity of moulting as the means of
the renewal of plumage, there are certain exceptions to the
general rule that all feathers are renewed by an absolute
casting of the plume. Take, for instance, Redstarts, Buntings,
and some of the Finches—there being no better example
than our House-Sparrow (Passer domesticus) of a change of
plumage without moult. In the autumn after the Cock
Sparrow has renewed his feathers and put on his winter dress,
he presents a much duller and browner appearance than he
does in the perky plumage of the summer. The grey head
appears brown, of the black throat there 1s no trace, ex:
cepting perhaps on the chin, and yet our little: friend will
put on his perfect dress in the following spring without
casting a single feather. The light edgings to the plumes,
which hide the grey colour of the head and the black of
84 Wonders of the Bird World
the throat, become abraded as spring approaches, and
the tips are gradually shed, so that the underlying colours
come to the fore, and the black feathers which we see on
the throat of the Sparrow are the identical ones which were
acquired by moult in the preceding autumn, and which
throughout the winter have appeared to be brown or
grey, owing to the light edgings with which the summer
plumage has been overlaid. The same takes place in
the Buntings and other birds, for in the Snow Bunting
(Plectrophenax nivalis) and the Reed Bunting (Emderiza
scheniclus) any one can prove the truth of this phenomenon,
by lifting the feathers of the winter plumage, when the
summer plumage will be found concealed by the lighter
edgings of the former period, and the basal portion of the
feathers will be found to represent the forthcoming summer
dress, which will be completed when the light margins of
the plumes shall have been shed. This fact can be studied
by any one who examines a Cock Sparrow killed in winter.
The Black Redstart (Rutictl/la titys) and the Pied Flycatcher
(ficedala atricapilla) are likewise birds which have their
summer plumage obscured by pale margins to the feathers
in winter, and these birds have been known, when in con-
finement, to attain their full summer plumage without the
shedding of a feather, and merely by the abrasion and
wearing off of the pale margins. The late Professor
Taczanowski told me once an extraordinary tale with
respect to one of these birds. He said that he could not
swear to the truth of it, as it did not-occur to himself, but
it was vouched for by one of his friends, who was a Polish
nobleman and a thorough naturalist, and Taczanowski
said that he himself believed the story to be perfectly true
and reliable. The naturalist in question shot a Pied Fly-
catcher one evening in spring, when the birds were about to
nest, but the bird he had killed was in grey plumage still,
but with indications of the black dress coming rapidly on.
Different Methods of Moulting 85
Not having time to skin the bird the same evening, the
hunter put it into a drawer of his dressing-table, and on
proceeding to take it out next morning, he was surprised
to find that during the night the process of change had
continued, and that the bird was nearly black. It is
many years since my old friend told me this story, and it
seemed so extraordinary that I never liked to put it into
print, but in the light of recent conclusions it seems that it
may as well be published, as Taczanowski himself never
doubted its authenticity.
Besides the acquisition of new plumage by the process
of moult and by the shedding of the light edges of the
feathers in spring, there is yet a third method, viz. by a
change in the pattern of the feather, without moult. It
is many years since I became convinced of the truth of
this phenomenon, and I published my first essay on the
subject in 1873, ‘On the Changes of Plumage in certain
Accipitrine Birds.’? I then endeavoured to show that
the change from a striped feather, such as that on the
chest of a young Sparrow-Hawk (Accipiter nisus), to
a barred one, could be, and was, effected by the break-
ing up of the pattern of the feather, instead of its
being shed and renewed. During the twenty-five years
that have elapsed since I first put my ideas before the
public, I have been more than ever convinced that this
phenomenon takes place in many other groups of birds
besides the Sparrow-Hawks, though I never could prove
how the change of pattern was effected. I could now
give numerous instances in which no one can doubt that
such a change takes place, however mysterious it may
seem that such a thing could be possible. One of the
best examples is that of the Australian Rifle-bird (Pézlorhis
paradisea), in which the male is velvety black, with a
beautiful triangular shield of burnished steel-green extend-
1 ‘Proceedings of the Zoological Society,’ 1873, p. 414.
86 Wonders of the Bird World
ing over the throat and fore-neck. The female, on the
other hand, is a plain ashy-brown bird, with the under
surface whitish, transversely barred with black. The young
male is at first like the mother bird, but the change to the
plumage of the adult male is not entirely accomplished by
a moult, but many of the feathers actually change their
pattern. Even some of the quills become black by a
gradual extension of the latter tint over the brown of the
original feather. The bars on the breast of the young
male are of a horse-shoe pattern, and these gradually break
up into irregular lines, and the feathers begin to darken on
their edges, and it is here that the colour ultimately becomes
of a velvety green.
Mr. Ogilvie-Grant has recorded the same fact with
regard to the way in which the female of the Red Grouse
(Lagopus scoticus) attains her full dress! “In some birds
the whole of the alteration of the plumage of the flanks is
produced by change of pattern in the old autumn feathers,
in others the change is entirely produced by moult, while
sometimes both methods are employed by the same in-
dividual. In the former case, the first indication of the
coming change may be observed in the beginning of
November, or even earlier, when many of the flank-feathers
show traces of an irregular buff stripe or spot near the
terminal half of the shaft. As the bird only changes about
half its flank-feathers, these buff marks are only to be
observed on such as are destined to undergo alteration of
pattern, which, roughly speaking, means every second or
third feather. The buff spot gradually enlarges and spreads
along the shaft, then becomes constricted at intervals, and
broken up into patches which gradually extend laterally
towards the margins of the webs, forming wide irregular
buff bands. Meanwhile the interspaces become black, and
the rufous of autumn dies out.
1“ Handbook to the Game-birds,’ vol. i. p. 32.
Change of Plumage without Moult 87
“When the summer feathers are supplied by moult, they
usually begin to make their appearance about the beginning
of March, and even when fully grown, may generally be
recognized from those produced by change of pattern, by
their more regular black and buff barring. The change of
pattern without a moult appears to take a long time to
become complete, for we find that, though autumn feathers,
altered in this way, begin to show traces of the coming
metamorphosis as early as the beginning of November, the
colours are often imperfectly arranged by the end of April.
When the summer feathers are supplied entirely by moult,
no change whatever is visible till about the end of February,
when the first new feathers begin to appear, though we
have noted a single instance of a summer feather making
its appearance as early as the middle of December.
“There can be no doubt that the male Red Grouse com-
pletes his autumn moult much more quickly than the
female does, many males being in full autumn plumage by
the beginning of September. Possibly this may be ac-
counted for by the resources of the female being more
severely taxed than those of the male during the breeding
season. It may very naturally be asked why some females
should change their summer flank-feathers by moult, while
others are enabled to arrive at the same result by going
through the much less exhaustive process of redecorating
their old autumnal feathers and making them serve the
purpose of new breeding plumage. This is a difficult
question to answer, but it seems natural to suppose that
the more vigorous birds gain their summer flank-feathers
by moult, while Nature has enabled the weaker individuals
to obtain the necessary protective nesting plumage by a
more gradual and less exhaustive process.”
The possibility of a change of pattern in feathers without
a moult was vigorously denied in England, when I mooted
the subject in 1873, and more recently Professor J. A.
88 Wonders of the Bird World
Allen of New York wrote a paper in which he ridiculed
the ideas on the subject, which had received attention from
a number of European naturalists of the highest repute,
since the year 1820 and onwards. His memoir is a com-
plete résumé of all that has been written on the subject,
and as to his conclusions, I join issue with him at once.
Professor Allen writes—“ The perfected feather, though worn
for from a few weeks to a year, according to the species
and the character of the feather, is in one sense practically a
dead organ, inasmuch as it is insusceptible of further growth
or repair.” As to the replenishing of the barbules of
a feather after they have once become lost, Professor
Allen is doubtless right, as such a thing would be im-
possible. A barbule once lost must be lost for ever, and
certainly could not be replaced. In the case of a deficiency
in this respect, the only possible renewal of the pattern of
a feather would be by a complete moult of the feather in
question. It is, therefore, a little surprising that so good
an observer as the late Heinrich Gatke could suppose that
the Wood-Sandpiper (Rhyacophilus glareola), after having
the white notches on the quills worn out by reason of the
abrasion of the barbules, could renew the latter, involving
a reinstalment of the structural portion of the feather. Gatke
was apparently unaware of the spring moult in Wading
Birds, and it is certain that the Wood-Sandpipers with
worn-out markings of the quills did not replace them by
any restoration of the pattern of the old feather, but simply
by a complete moult. Professor Allen’s criticisms have
been challenged by Mr. J. G. Millais in the ‘Ibis’ for 1896
(p. 451), whose conclusions agree with those of myself
and other European naturalists as to the possibility of a
change of pattern in certain species. His proofs are
confined to certain Grebes and Wading-birds, but in 1897
Dr. Chadbourne made some valuable experiments on
the colouration of feathers in the Bobolink (Dolichonyx
Colouration of Feathers 89
oryztrora), and has shown by microscopical examination
that the perfect feather of a bird is by no means “ dead,” as
has been supposed, but is full of life, and that the “colour
change in the individual feather is fact, not theory” (‘ Auk,’
xiv. p. 145). This is the evidence which ornithologists
have been waiting for for years, for, although to myself
the change of pattern in a feather was an evident fact,
I had never the time to follow up the subject, and find
out #ow it was possible for a feather to act in this method
of change of pattern, though the fact that it szst do so
was too frequently forced upon me to admit of any doubt
as to the possibility of the phenomenon.
CHAPTER IV
DECORATION IN BIRDS (continued)
The Poise of a Humming-bird (after Ridgway).
Humming-birds— Difference in plumage between male and female—
The Racket-tailed Humming-bird— Bell-bird— Umbrella-bird—
Great Crested Grebe—Standard-winged Nightjar—Huia.
AMONG the highly coloured birds of the world the
Hummers take a foremost place, for the majority of the
species are bedecked with metallic plumes of brilliant tint,
while the variety in form and adornment is equalled in no
other Order or Family of Birds. The Humming-birds, in
fact, stand alone in the class Aves, and have no very close
allies. Their flight is of extraordinary rapidity and their
power of hovering more than wonderful, so that in many
of their actions they resemble the Hawk-moths or Sphynges,
go
Humming-birds gI
being seen here for a second hovering in front of a flower,
with wings so quickly vibrating as to be almost invisible to
the eye, while in another second they are hovering many
yards away. Professor Ridgway, of the United States
National Museum, who has written an excellent mono-
graphic account of the Humming-birds, thus describes
the flight of a member of the Order—* It often towers
above the trees, and then shoots off, like a little meteor,
at a right angle. At other times it quietly buzzes away
among the flowers near the ground. At one moment it is
poised over a diminutive weed, at the next it is seen at
a distance of forty yards, whither it has vanished with the
quickness of thought. During the heat of the day the
shady retreats beneath the trees are very often visited:
in the morning and evening the sunny banks, the verandahs
and other exposed situations are frequently resorted to.”
At the present time about five hundred species of
Humming-birds are known, and though a few of them
visit the United States in summer, the bulk of the species
are confined to what is called the Neotropical region,
which comprises Central and South America. Some of
the Humming-birds, such as the members of the genus
Phaethornis, are plainly coloured, with the sexes alike, but
the majority have brilliant metallic colours confined to the
male sex, the females being of much more sober tints. It
has been pointed out that this dull colouration is of a
distinct advantage for the protection of the eggs, as the
nest is built in an exposed position, being generally a little
cup-shaped structure of moss or wool, and thus the sitting
hen would be a conspicuous object if she carried the
flaunting metallic plumage of the male birds. Among the
Humming-birds we find the most extraordinary examples
of decorative plumage, and the ornaments are of all
kinds—metallic crests, backs, throats, breast-shields, etc;
but no one of all the Order is more remarkable than the
92 Wonders of the Bird World
Racket-tailed Humming-bird (Loddigesia mirabilis). It
well deserves its specific name of mradilis or wonderful,
for it is certainly one of the most extraordinary birds in
existence. It was first discovered at Chachapoyas in
Upper Amazonia, and was described by Gould in 1847,
and to conceive of the way in which the majority of the
Humming-birds are restricted to a limited area, I may state
that Mr. Gould offered a large sum to travellers about to
visit South America, if they would bring him back
The Racket-tailed Humming-bird (Loddigesia mirabilis).
specimens of the Loddigesia, and yet up to the time of his
death in 1881 he had never succeeded in obtaining an
example of this rare species, which up to that time re-
mained unique in the Loddiges collection. In 1880,
however, the celebrated Polish traveller Stolzmann revisited
the town of Chachapoyas, whence the original example
came from, and succeeded in rediscovering the species.
He writes as follows—! “It seems to be restricted to the
basin of the Utcubamba, a little river on the right bank of
the system of the Marajion, and is only found at an altitude
1 Taczanowski, ‘ Ornithologie du Pérou, vol. i. p. 321.
Racket-tailed Humming-bird 93
of between 7000 and gooo feet above sea-level. The
country is bare of forest, and it is only in its southern
portion that one meets with the Montafia of Puma-Urcu,
which, so to speak, joins with the forests of Huayabanba,
that is, with the principal mass of the forests of Northern
Peru. The remainder of the country inhabited by the
Loddigesia is covered with cultivated fields, pastures, or
brush-wood, and there is a system of small valleys and
ravines with a somewhat richer vegetation, and containing
here and there groups of large trees, probably the survivors
of the ancient forests. The greater part of these areas is
covered with almost impenetrable thickets of a thorny
plant, called Zarza (Peruvian Strawberry), mixed here
and there with alders. It is in these thickets that the
Loddigesta dwells, appearing to avoid the large forests
bare of the flowers necessary for its subsistence.
“A beautiful Adstromeria, with a red flower, seems to be
its favourite flower, as one can make sure of finding the
Loddigesta wherever this flower is met with. The plant
flourishes from the month of August up to the end of
November. As this flower is not visited by the Lesdza
gracilis, which is the Humming-bird which most persistently
persecutes the Loddigesza, the latter feeds at its ease. It
loves also to visit the flowers of a sort of spring strawberry
and also a certain tree called by the natives Zo/a, which is
apparently a kind of myrtle. The female is likewise
observed on the little violet flowers of a species of Pimento
called in this part of the country ‘472’
“ Nowhere can this Humming-bird be said to be com-
mon. On ‘the contrary, it must be considered to be a
rare species, and the full-plumaged males are decidedly
scarcer than the females and the young males. From
morning till evening the birds are in continual motion.
Whilst some Humming-birds appear to have their hours of
rest, and others abandon themselves to the performance of
94 Wonders of the Bird World
a song, one never sees the Loddigesia inactive for any length
of time. The females are not so shy as the adult males,
and their flight presents no difference from that of other
Humming-birds, but it is perfectly wonderful to observe the
incredible swiftness and precision with which it passes
across the densest thickets, where the bird is obliged to
change the direction of its flight many times in a second
in order to avoid the obstacles which it encounters at
every turn of its course. On arresting its flight at
the calyces of the flowers, the Loddzgesia balances its
tail in the same way as the long-tailed Zesdza and other
Humming-birds. The two lateral tail-feathers of the
adult male are so arranged in flight, that the two
rackets mutually approach each other. This operation
is effected mechanically; as the tail-feathers are able
to turn themselves to a certain point in their basal tube,
the slightest opposition in the air suffices to produce
a similar position. One can prove this in recently killed
specimens. These tail-feathers remain therefore crossed,
and the further point of this crossing takes places quite
close to the commencement of the rackets.
“The humming noise produced by the hen bird in its
flight can be easily distinguished, after a slight experience,
from that of the long-tailed Lesbza gracilis, its persistent
persecutor. It emits a higher note, which is to be explained
by its shorter wings. The male, which has even shorter
wings than the female, produces a humming ina still higher
key, and one can detect the presence of a male bird by its
humming alone, without even seeing it. The réunzons in
which the Loddzgesia indulges, constitute one of the most
interesting facts in the bird’s economy. The observations
were made by me at Osmal, where two or three males
gathered together, and later at Tamiapampa, where from
five to eight immature males, of the same age, used to
assemble and carry out their curious manceuvres. In the
Young Males of the Loddigesia at play.
Racket-tailed Humming-bird 97
latter locality there was nothing which could apparently
attract the birds it was an open plateau, with some scat-
tered bushes, which offered a minimum of shade. There
were no flowers, and the birds only assembled there to go
through their evolutions.”
Two young males would arrest their flight in the air,
vis-a-vis, with the body suspended in a vertical position,
opening their tails, turn and turn about, so that the outer
tail-feathers with their rackets formed a straight line
perpendicular to the long axis of the bird, as they darted
from side to side. Each time that the bird opened its tail,
was heard a little dry sound like the snapping noise made
by two finger-nails or the sound made in shutting a
watch.
“My later observations,” says Mr. Stolzmann, “made on the
Manakins, and the analogy of the stiffening of the secondary
quills, induce me to believe that it is the mutual concussion
of these stiffened feathers which makes the sound that which
one can hear at ten paces’ distance. The elongated under
tail-coverts rest in their natural position, being independent
of the system of the muscles of the rump, which are strongly
developed.
“The manceuvre lasts for quite twenty seconds. It is
ordinarily executed by two young males ; but sometimes, as
I have already remarked, a larger number take part in it.
One can nearly always hear the voice of a female bird in the
neighbourhood. At Tamiapampa ten minutes did not pass
but these manceuvres were repeated, and the birds have
their chosen places for the performance. On the plateau
mentioned above they had a favourite thicket. At Osmal
there were two such, and the birds seldom went through
their manceuvres elsewhere. By concealing oneself quietly
in the neighbourhood I could observe them for as long as I
wished.”
Mr. Stolzmann speaks of another evolution still more
H
98 Wonders of the Bird World
out of the common. A young male would rest suspended
underneath a thin branch, whilst another would perform
above him, spreading its tail and clicking. They would
change their position in the twinkling of an eye, when the
second bird would hang under the branch, and the other
would take its turn in the air above it. “It would be
curious,” says the naturalist above-mentioned, “ to know the
object of such evolutions. Can it be a kind of exercise, or
aform ofrivalry? If it could be for either of these reasons,
how comes it that the adult males so seldom appear to take
part in the performance, though they pass by very often ?
Only once have I seen an old male arrest his flight in front
of a young one.” The adult birds in showing off their tail
would sometimes give an extraordinary position to the outer
tail-feathers, so that the two rackets would range themselves
above the bird’s head. This unique movement of the tail
observed by Stolzmann would be represented by the raising
of the tail on high, the rackets thus covering the head,
while the body of the bird is constricted in front. It is
often more easy to observe the rackets than the bird itself,
and thus a man often fails to shoot it if it turns towards the
hunter, as its varied breast is easily confounded with the
neighbouring objects. When the bird is flying in the shade
the rackets are also easy to distinguish.
Stolzmann has seen one of these Humming-birds drinking
the water of a brook, in which it had sought out a little
cascade, and one can well understand that it is only in
such a manner that it can assuage its thirst. Such tiny
cascades abound all over the country inhabited by the
Loddigesia. It was just before sunset, and he observed the
bird at a distance of three paces.
The note of the adult male is not known, but the young
males and the females utter a cry ¢sz-ts¢-¢s¢/ rapidly
repeated. It is heard when the birds visit flowers or dur-
ing their manceuvres; when at rest, they utter no sound.
Racket-tailed Humming-bird 99
In November a female was seen collecting moss for its
nest, and this was the season of the manceuvres.
That the wonderful tail of Loddigesta mirabilis is nothing
more than ornamentation, cannot be doubted, and it is
equally certain that the rackets are rather a hindrance to
the bird’s flight, and not an assistance, as was supposed by
Gould. The tail is wonderfully formed, for in the females and
young males ten tail-feathers are present, as in the majority
of Humming-birds, but the adult male has only four. The
two central ones are very tiny and scarcely visible, while the
other pair are developed into wire-like plumes, with the
large racket at the end ; these cross each other twice. The
long-pointed feathers which we see in the picture of the Lod-
digesia are not really tail-feathers, but are under tail-coverts
developed to an inordinate length. Mr. O. T. Baron, who
was at Chachapoyas in 1895, occupied the same Hacienda
that Mr. Stolzmann had lived in, but it was now in
ruins, so that he had to pitch a tent, the spot selected for
which was near a thick bush in full flower. “Hardly was
the tent up,” says Mr. Baron, “ when I heard the familiar
sound of the wings of Loddigesia mirabilis. Immediately
other arrangements were left and my gun seized. I saw
a beautiful Loddzgesza in the bush, too near to shoot. The
thought came over me to save the bird for observation, for
which I have never been sorry, though I may have lost a
very fine specimen by doing so,
“Shortly after, a female bird arrived and settled upon a
small limb. Immediately the male bird discontinued feed-
ing and flew towards the female, the tail so spread that the
spatules were protruded in front of his bill. In this position
it hovered for a short time, when a young male appeared
on the scene. The adult male discontinued his perform-
ance and sat upon a little branch. The young one hovered
before it, flying from side to side for about ten inches, and
flipping its two long tail-feathers at every extreme of its
too =©30©6-_ Wonders of the Bird World
course, producing a sound as if two fine leather belts were
flapped together. The old male soon tired of the perform-
ance, forced the young one to sit down, and then performed
himself in the same way, but he flipped the spatules
together adove, instead of de/ow, the tail as the young one
did. At times the adult male would also fly before
the female from side to side, making a noise with the
spatules that could be heard thirty yards away. If the
young one returned alone, he would attack a dry leaf
furiously, peck at it, and flap the tail for many minutes
at a time.
“Once two young birds met, attacking each other. The
sitting bird would watch the flying one, moving its head
from side to side, and then suddenly slip off the branch
into a hanging position. The flying bird would still attack
it; yet the hanging one, though imitating death, had its
eyes open.” }
Although Humming-birds have no actual song, as we
understand it, yet they produce extraordinary noises with
the wings during the nesting time, which are supposed by
those who have heard them to correspond with the love-
notes of other birds during the breeding season. Thus
Mr. Kershaw, writing of the Broad-tailed Humming-bird
(Selasphorus platycercus), observes—‘ During the mating,
and perhaps also through the entire breeding season, the
flight of the male is always accompanied by a curious, loud,
metallic, rattling noise, which he is enabled to produce in
some way by means of the attenuation of the outer
primaries. This is, I think, intentionally made, and is
analogous to the love-note of other birds. Though I saw
many of these birds in the fall, it was only very rarely that
this whistling noise was heard, and then with greatly
diminished force.”
Mr. Ridgway says that he has heard the above-named
1“ Novitates Zoologicz,’ vol. iii. p. ro.
“Ceasiynpuag sn1zggopvygeD) PAG-E|aaquisyy urOpensy
Humming-birds 103
species make a shrill, screeching noise, something like that
made by a rapidly revolving circular saw when rubbed by
a splinter, when the males were driving off any other
Humming-bird from the vicinity of their nests. At these
times the little aggressor would rise to a considerable
height in the air, and descend upon its enemy like a flash
of lightning.
Irritability and curiosity are the characteristics of the
Humming-birds, and sometimes the tiny creatures will hover
right in the face of an intruder, and they often show but
little shyness with human beings, though, when kept in
confinement, they do not long survive. They fight con-
tinually with one another in a wild state, and will even
attack birds of far greater bulk than themselves. Of the
way in which they hover in flight, Mr. Robert Ridgway, in
his essay on the Humming-birds, has given a figure in his
account of Calothorax lucifer from Mexico, which is here
copied (p. 90).
In South America we meet with some birds which
illustrate what I would call plain or simple decoration, as
opposed to the gaudy decoration of the Birds of Paradise
and the Humming-birds. Examples of this are seen in the
Bell-birds and the Umbrella-birds, as they are called. The
common Bell-bird (Chasmorhynchus niveus) is an inhabitant
of Guiana, and in addition to its snowy-white plumage, which
in itself is beautiful enough, it has also a simple ornamenta-
tion in the scantily-feathered horn which is found on the
forehead of the male, and is capable of being raised at will
when the bird is calling and uttering the clear metallic
cry from which it derives its popular name. The female,
on the other hand, is of a dull greenish colour. That the
horn on the fore part of the crown is actually ornamental
and serves no functional purpose, is evident from the fact
that the allied species, the Three-wattled Bell-bird from
Central America (Chasmorhynchus tricarunculatus), has three
104 Wonders of the Bird World
long caruncles on the head, which are not elevated or
moved in any way, and are certainly only ornaments of
the male sex. The inflation of the Bell-bird’s wattle is
effected through the palate, and is apparently managed in
somewhat the same way as the distension of the male
Bustard’s pouch, which opens under the tongue (see p. 247).
Waterton says that the note of the Bell-bird is loud and
clear, like the sound of a bell, and may be heard at a
distance of three miles. After a toll has been uttered by
the bird, there comes a pause, then another toll, and then
another pause. Then perhaps will follow a silence for
some six or cight minutes, and then tolling commences
again. The Trinidad species (Chasmorhynchus variegatus)
is said to have a note like that of a cracked bell, but that
of the Brazilian Bell-bird (C. nudzcollis) has a remarkable
resemblance to the striking of a hammer on an anvil, as I
have heard myself in the case of individuals in confinement.
Prince Max of Neu-Wied, who travelled in Brazil in the
early part of the century, and who was one of the best
field-observers that ever lived, tells us that the species is
named by the Portuguese “ Ferreiro,” or “ Blacksmith,” and
when several birds are calling to each other at the same
time, the effect is quite remarkable, as the birds utter their
note with an interval of about a second between each.
When giving vent to its extraordinary note, the bird
accompanies the latter by a jerk of its tail.
Another instance of simple but effective ornamentation
is seen in the Umbrella-birds of South America. Like
the foregoing species, these wonderful birds belong to the
Family of Chatterers (Cofzngid@), which is exclusively
American. There are three species, the Amazonian Um-
brella-bird (Cephalopterus ornatus), inhabiting Amazonia,
and ranging from Bolivia to Ecuador, Colombia, and
Guiana, being replaced in Western Ecuador by C. penduliger,
and in Veragua and Costa Rica by C. glabricollis, which
Great Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus).
(From specimens in the Natural History Museum.)
The Umbrella-bird 107
differs from the others in having the whole of the throat
naked and of a red colour, as well as the caruncle which
proceeds from the throat. In the Amazonian Umbrella-
bird and its ally from Western Ecuador, this long caruncle
is densely feathered, and forms a kind of dew-lap. The
“Umbrella” consists of a sort of hood formed by the
feathers of the forehead and crown, which are long, and
curve over at the ends. All the species have a peculiar
and far-sounding cry, and are all inhabitants of forest-
country, from the depths of which their note resounds.
When uttering this note, the bird spreads its crest, waves
its pendent neck-lappet, and bows its head as it pipes.
There is not so much difference in the colour of the sexes
in the genus Cephalopterus, the female being only slightly
duller in colour, and having the crest and dew-lap much
less developed.
In certain forms of birds, however, we find that the sexes
are alike in colour of plumage, and even in decoration.
One of the most striking examples of this phenomenon,
which is extremely rare in the Class Aves, is exhibited
by the Grebes (Podveipedide). Feven in our familiar little
Dabchick (Podtcipes fluviatilis), both male and female put
on the same plumage in summer, and from the silvery
breast and brown upper surface of the winter dress, they
become black above and below in summer, and show a
considerable amount of chestnut on the sides of the head
and neck. The young of the Grebes are also peculiar, and
are streaked with black and white like little Zebras. One
of the most curious instances of assimilation in ornamental
decoration of the sexes of a bird is exhibited by the Great
Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus). Were the two birds
are coloured alike, the tippet assumed during the breeding
season being donned by both male and female, so that
there is practically no difference in colour between the
sexes, except that the head-dress of the female is not quite
108 Wonders of the Bird World
so large as that of her mate. This is quite an exceptional
occurrence among birds, as the male is usually so much
more brilliantly coloured than the female; where any
difference exists in the colour of the sexes, and certainly
among Water-birds, wherever there is divergence in the
plumage of male and female, the beauty of the former is
very marked. This is especially the case with Ducks, where
the male is much more brilliantly coloured than the hen
bird. In Geese and Swans, however, as well as in Penguins,
Auks, Gulls, Petrels, and Divers, the sexes are almost
exactly alike, and few of these birds exhibit any particular
ornamentation, such as I have alluded to above in the case
of the Great Crested Grebes. Here both male and female
have the snowy white breast so much in demand among
ladies for jacket-trimming and for muffs, and in summer
they put on ornamental tippets in both sexes. This
species is becoming much more common in England of
late years, as protection has been afforded to it, and it isa
great ornament to our inland waters. Quite recently a
pair of these handsome birds have taken up their abode
on the lake in Wimbledon Park, and have successfully
reared their young. The latter have a pretty striped
plumage, and show also a bare patch of bright red on the
crown, which is not seen in the adult birds, so that in the
Great Crested Grebe we have an ornament in the young
individuals which is not continued when the bird becomes
adult. The nest which this species makes is a flat one o1
rushes and water plants, and it is generally easy of dis-
covery, as it is built out in the lake on the edges of the
standing reeds, and the eggs can be seen from some
distance, as the nest is nearly level with the water. I have
found several such nests on the Norfolk Broads in places
where they are preserved, but in certain localities they are
found in colonies during the breeding season, and nest in
dense reed-beds. Grebes have a curious habit of covering .
(uLenppixe2 sitcojauisoy) relyySin PeDUIA-pacpurys sy
The Standard-winged Nightjar 11t
the eggs on leaving the nest, so that these are often quite
concealed. I have found many nests of the Little Grebe
(Podicipes fluviatilis) which looked like a mass of decayed
and rotting water-plants, and have been somewhat sur-
prised on disturbing the covering to find a number of
eggs underneath. The eggs, which are at first white, soon
become stained by their surroundings, and in many in-
stances are even quite cold, so that it would not appear
that they are covered up by the birds for the sake of being
hatched out by the fermentation of the decayed water-
plants, as has been supposed. In the case of the Great
Crested Grebe, Seebohm distinctly states that he found the
eggs, where the complement was complete, covered up
with damp moss and quite warm, whereas those nests
which had only one or two eggs were uncovered and the
eggs cold.
It is of course during the breeding season that the
decorative faculty in birds is displayed to the utmost, and
every bird that possesses any striking or fantastic orna-
ments displays them for the attraction of his mate. This is
especially the case with Game-birds, some of the Pheasants
making a great exhibition of their beautiful colours at the
season of nesting, but perhaps one of the most interesting
assumptions of nuptial ornament is to be seen in two
African Nightjars. In South America the most fantastic
of the family Caprimulgide is the Fork-tailed Nightjar of
Brazil (Aydropsalis Lyra), which has an extravagantly long
forked tail. In Africa the wings of two of the Nightjars
show an extraordinary development. Thus the Standard-
winged Nightjar (Cosmetornis vexillarius) of the Zambesi
is remarkable for the elongation of the seventh and
eighth primaries, while the ninth is developed into a
streamer, which floats to a distance of nearly two feet
behind the bird. It is also found on the West Coast
of Africa in the Niger region, and on the waters and
112 Wonders of the Bird World
lakes of Nyasaland. The birds appear to be strictly
crepuscular in their habits, and resemble other Nightjars
in this respect, as they do not fly in the daytime; but Sir
John Kirk mentions, as an extraordinary experience with
the Standard-wing, that he has seen the males come off in
flocks of about fifteen, and fly over the surface of the
Nyasa Lake, when a sudden storm has come on and
raised a surf sufficient to prevent his boat from landing.
The other remarkable species is the Pennant-winged
Nightjar (Alacrodipteryx longipennts), which is noticed on
P. 277.
Not very often in the class of Birds do we meet with
structural differences between the two sexes, such variation
as is exhibited being mostly one of colour, and not of
form. In New Zealand, however, we have a wonderful
instance of the difference of form in the male and female
Huia, or Wattled Starling (Heteralocha acutirostris), where
the male has a stout conical bill, and the female has a long
curved one. In colour the two sexes are exactly alike,
being glossy black all over, with a broad white band at
the end of the tail, while a large orange wattle is present on
each side of the gape, but the difference in the shape of
the bill is extraordinary, as will be seen by the figures in
the accompanying picture. And there is, moreover, a use
for these two divergently shaped bills, for, according to
Sir Walter Buller, the food of the Huia consists principally
of the Hu-hu grub, which is “the larva of a large nocturnal
beetle, and infests all decayed timber, attaining at maturity
to the size of a man’s little finger. Like all grubs of its
kind, it is furnished with a horned head and_ horny
mandibles.”
On offering one of these to the Huia, the bird would
seize it in the middie, and at once transfer it to its perch,
and then placing one foot firmly upon the grub, he would
tear off the hard parts, and then throwing the creature
ralocha acutirostris).
The Huia (Heder
The Huta i o
upwards to secure it lengthwise in his bill, would swallow
it whole. Two birds which were captured for Sir Walter
Buller by a native, were kept by him in confinement, and
he says that they were most interesting pets, and used to
caress each other with their ivory-white bills, and throw
themselves into a variety of attitudes. By placing a tree-
trunk in their cage he was able to watch their habits
closely, and to discover the use of the differently shaped
bills in the male and female. After probing the log pro-
vided for them, which contained numbers of Hu-hu grubs,
the birds would attack any part where the wood seemed
soft and rotten; then commenced the work of the male,
who would use his strong bill like a Woodpecker’s, and
chisel out the soft wood till the grub was exposed to view,
when the female would insert her more slender curved bill
and drag it out. In its native wilds in New Zealand the
Huia is nowhere a common bird, and inhabits but a very
limited area of forest country, but now that it is protected
by Government, there may be some chance of this wonder-
ful bird not becoming extinct, as has been feared by many
naturalists. There can be little doubt that the Huia is a
Forest-Starling, and is allied to the extinct Fregzupus of
Réunion,
An extraordinary instance of decoration was recently
shown me in an unfledged nestling of the Gouldian
Weaver-Finch (Poephila gouldie) from Australia. Dr. A.
G. Butler had received the specimen in question from Mr. H.
St. Quintin, in whose aviary it had been bred, and I never
saw a more wonderful little object. It was still quite blind
and entirely bare of feathers, but besides some bars on the
tongue and palate, there were three bright little rounded
warts, like beads, at the angle of the mouth. Two were
emerald green and one blue, and they all had a pearly or
opalescent lustre. One naturally inquires what can possibly
be the object of such brilliant decoration in a blind and
116 Wonders of the Bird World
helpless nestling, for the ornament can appeal to no one
but the little bird’s own parents. Another instance in
which a young bird has a coloured wattle at the gape,
which disappears in the adult, is that of the Red-tailed
Weaver-Finch (Erythrura cyanovirens) of Samoa.
The palate. The bead-like wattles on the gape.
Ornamental markings in the nestling of the Gouldian Weaver-Finch ‘from the specimen
bred by Mr. H. St. Quintin, and described by Dr. A. G. Butler in the ‘ Avicultural
Magazine’ for November 1898).
CHAPTER V
THE PLAYING-GROUNDS OF BIRDS
Satin Bower-bird (Péilonorhynchus violaceus).
The meeting-places of the Birds of Paradise—-The drawing-room of
the Argus Pheasant—The assemblies of the Cocks of the Rock
—Bower-builders—Gardeners.
THE consideration of the ornamental plumage of birds led
me to speak of the Lyre-birds, where I mentioned for the
first time a “playing-ground.” This phenomenon, how-
ever, is not altogether so rare among birds as one might
have believed, and there are many species which have their
place for showing off, nor are they always birds of brilliant
appearance or decoration, for the instinct is strongest
perhaps in the Bower-birds (Pézlonorhynchid@), which are
none of them very brightly dressed. Many of the Birds of
117
118 Wonders of the Bird World
Paradise have meeting-places, where the males show off
their splendid plumage. A tree is selected by them as a
dancing-ground, and sometimes as many as twenty adult
males will assemble and go through various manceuvres,
flying from branch to branch in a state of great excitement,
and quivering their beautiful long flank-feathers of red or
yellow.
Of the Red Bird of Paradise of South-eastern New
Guinea, Paradisea raggiana, the following account. of an
assembly has been given by Messrs. Chalmers and Wyatt—
“One morning we had camped on a space of the Owen
Stanley Range, and being up early, to enjoy the cool
atmosphere, we saw on one of the clumps of trees close by
six Birds of Paradise, four cocks and two hens. The
latter were sitting quietly on a branch, and the four
cocks, dressed in their very best, their ruffs of green and
yellow standing out, giving them a handsome appearance
about the head and neck, their long flowing plumes so
arranged that every feather seemed combed out, and the
long wires stretched well out behind, were dancing in a
circle round them. It was an interesting sight. First one
and then another would advance a little nearer to a hen,
and she, coquette-like, would retire a little, pretending not
to care for any advances. A shot was fired, contrary to
our expressed wish ; there was a strange commotion, and
two of the cocks flew away, but the others and the hens
remained. Soon the two returned, and again the dance
began and continued long. As we had strictly forbidden
any more shooting, all fear was gone ; and so, after a rest,
the males came a little nearer to the dark brown and cer-
tainly not pretty hens. Quarrelling ensued, and in the end
all six birds flew away.”
Many Game-birds also have their playing-places, and
this is particularly the case with the great Argus Pheasant
(Argusianus argus). This remarkable bird is an inhabitant
The Argus Pheasant 119
of the Malay Peninsula, Siam, and Southern Tenasserim, as
well as the island of Sumatra, but in Borneo a smaller
species (A. gray?)) lives, and in Tonquin a different kind is
found, belonging to another genus, Rezxhardius, which has
not the secondary quills developed to such an extent as in
the common species. The Argus Pheasant of the Malay
countries is one of the most splendid birds in existence,
and, like its namesake, has indeed a“ hundred eyes.” The
whole of the outer web of the secondaries, which are more-
over of enormous size, is decorated with circular spots of
white, yellow, and rufous, surrounded by a ring of black, and
it is from these eye-like spots that the bird gets its name.
In captivity the Argus often displays his wonderful
plumage, much as the Peacock exhibits his train for the
admiration of the female, by throwing up his wing and
bringing it forward towards the ground, so as to display all
the series of spots on the secondaries. The late Mr. William
Davison, who explored Tenasserim for years in pursuit of
natural history specimens for the great Hume Collection,
has given the best and indeed the only account of the habits
of the Argus Pheasant with which I am acquainted. One
peculiarity about the bird’s life is that the males and
females live apart, and the latter appear to have no fixed
residence, but wander about the forest, only occasionally
visiting the male bird in his “drawing-room,” as Mr.
Davison calls the playing-ground. The hen bird, he was
told, builds a rude nest in some dense cane-brake, and lays
seven or eight eggs like those of a domestic Turkey, hatch-
ing them out and bringing up the nestlings without any
assistance from the male bird. The latter in fact appears
to be almost wholly devoted to the keeping of the drawing-
room in order, and is by no means of a quarrelsome dis-
position. In some parts of Tenasserim the Argus Pheasant
is quite a common bird, and many males are found in-
habiting the same forest district. If a gun be fired, every
120 Wonders of the Bird World
one of the birds within hearing begins to call, and on
any alarm or excitement, such asa troop of Monkeys
passing overhead, they immediately give vent to their note,
which sounds like “ how-how!” repeated ten or a dozen
times. This note is given out at short intervals when the
male is in its clearing, and is answered by every other male
in the vicinity. Mr. Davison says that the female has
quite a different note, which sounds like “ hozw-owo0, how-
owoo /” the last syllable much prolonged, repeated ten or a
dozen times, but getting more and more rapid, until it ends
in a series of “ozoos” run together. The call-notes of
both the male and female Argus travel to an immense
distance, that of the former especially being heard at a
distance of a mile or more.
The “drawing-room” consists of some open level spot,
sometimes chosen down in a dark gloomy ravine, entirely
surrounded and shut in by dense cane-brakes and rank
vegetation ; sometimes on the top of a hill where the jungle
is comparatively open, from which the male bird clears
everything in the shape of dead leaves or weeds for the
space of six or eight yards square, until nothing but the
bare earth remains, and thereafter he keeps this place
scrupulously clean, carefully removing every dead leaf or
twig that may happen to fall on it from the trees above.
The food of the Argus consists chiefly of fallen fruit, as well
as of ants, slugs, and insects. The birds feed in the early
morning, and all come down to the water to drink about
ten or eleven a.m., and the males then retire to look after
their drawing-room for the rest of the day.
Mr. Davison says that in his opinion these cleared spaces
are undoubtedly dancing-grounds, but he was never able to
catch one of the birds actually dancing in them. The
proprietor was always either seated quietly in the clearing
or was moving slowly backwards and forwards, calling at
short*intervals. Except in the hours of feeding or drinking
The Areus Pheasant I21
in the morning and evening, the male Argus Pheasants
were always to be found at home, and they roost in the
trees close to their clearing. They are remarkably shy
birds, inhabiting the depths of the dense evergreen forests,
and are most difficult of approach, as they dive into the
impenetrable thickets on the first suspicion of danger, and
never fly if they can escape by running, even when pursued
by a dog. Even if the hunter manages to approach the
playing-ground so stealthily that only a few yards separate
him from the calling bird, the latter has always disappeared
when at last he is able to see into the clearing through the
dense intervening foliage. It is therefore impossible to
shoot the birds, but they are somewhat easily trapped,
when once their playing-ground is discovered.
Thus Mr. Davison himself used to catch them by build-
ing a hedge of cut scrub round the playing-ground, and
leaving four openings for the bird to enter by, each
furnished with a running noose attached to a bent sapling,
but the Malays take advantage of the idiosyncracy of the
Argus to keep its clearing scrupulously clean, and act
accordingly. “A bit of bamboo, about eighteen or twenty
inches long and a quarter of an inch wide, is shaved down
till it is of the thickness of writing-paper, the edges being
as sharp as a razor. This narrow pliant piece ends in a
stout sort of handle at one end, six or eight inches long,
which is driven firmly into the ground in the middle of the
cleared space. The bird, in trying to remove it, scratches
and pecks at it, endeavouring to dig it up, but finding all
its efforts vain, it twists the narrow pliant portion several
times round its neck and takes hold of the bamboo near the
ground with its bill, then giving a sudden spring backwards to
try to pullitup. The consequence is that its head is nearly
severed from its body by the razor-like edges of the bamboo.
“ Another method is to erect two small posts, about four
feet high and three feet apart, in the clearings, across the
122 Wonders of the Bird World
top of which a bar is firmly fastened. Over this bar a
string is run, by one end of which a heavy block of wood is
suspended just under the bar, while the other end is sus-
pended to a peg lightly driven into the ground immediately
beneath the block. The bird, commencing as usual to clear
away these obstructions, soon manages to pull up the peg
and thus release the heavy block of wood, which falls and
crushes it.” ?
The Argus sometimes suffers from its lack of pugnacity,
and is flaunted on its own hearth by the more aggressive
Fire-back Pheasant of Tenasserim (Lophura rufa). The
same excellent field naturalist, whose writings I have
quoted above, tells the following story—
“T noticed on one occasion a very curious thing. I had
stalked an Argus, and while waiting to obtain a good shot,
I heard the peculiar note, a sort of chukun, chukun !
followed by the whirring noise made by the male Fire-back,
and immediately after saw a fine male bird run in to the
open space, and begin to chase the Argus round and round
its own clearing. The Argus seemed loth to quit its
domain, and yet not willing to fight, but at last, being hard
pressed, it ran into the jungle. The Fire-back did not
attempt to follow, but took up a position in the middle of
the clearing and recommenced the whirring noise with its
wings, evidently as a challenge, whereupon the Argus
slowly returned, but the moment it got within the cleared
space, the Fire-back charged it and drove it back into the
jungle, and then, as before, took up its position in the
middle of the space, and repeated its challenge. The
Argus immediately returned, but only to be again driven
back, and this continued at least a dozen times, but how
much longer it would have gone on I cannot say, for a
movement on my part attracting the birds’ attention, they
caught sight of me, and instantly disappeared in the jungle
' Stray Feathers,’ vi. pp. 428, 439 (1828).
‘lapnijuy uy
The Cock of the Rock 125
before I could fire. The Argus never made the slightest
attempt to attack the Fire-back, but retreated at once on the
slightest movement of the latter towards it, nor did I see the
Fire-back strike the Argus with either bill, wings, or spurs.”
A similar kind of meeting-ground or playing-arena is
prepared by other species besides the Game-birds, and one
of the Passerine birds which indulges in this amusement is
the Cock of the Rock (Rupicola crocea), of Guiana and
Amazonia. (See frontispiece.) It must be a curious sight
to watch an assembly of these beautiful birds, gathered
round to the number of twenty or more, males and females,
while some of the males “take the floor.” The plumage of
the adult is of a bright orange colour with a beautiful
curved crest on the crown, while the secondaries are square
at the ends and form ornamental plumes. When dancing,
the bird droops his wings, waves his crest from side to side,
and hops along with most peculiar steps. The late Clarence
Buckley, the explorer of Ecuador, told me that he has seen
the males of the Blood-red Cock of the Rock (Rupicola
sanguinolenta), ina state of frantic excitement, chasing each
other through the forest, clinging to the trunks of the trees,
and displaying their beautiful plumage to the utmost
extent. A third species, A. peruviana, also of a red colour,
inhabits Peru, where Stolzmann says that it frequents
the forest country from 2000 to 5000 feet, and builds its
nest on almost inaccessible rocks, laying two white eggs.
He says that it is called by the natives Zung? or
Coutsch-pishcou, which means “ Bird-Pig.” It has the most
disagreeable cry of any bird he has ever heard, and the only
comparison he can think of is to that of a person being
sick. The first time he heard it, he thought it must be the
cry of a monkey, and not that of any bird.
It is, however, among the Bower-birds (Ptclonorhynchid@)
that we find the most striking instances of Bird Architecture
in the way of playing-grounds and arbours, and it must be
126 Wonders of the Bird World
remembered that these are designed only for amusement,
and in no way have anything to do with the nesting of the
species. The Australian Region certainly presents us with
some of the most extraordinary birds in the world, forms
which occur there and nowhere else, and one can well
understand the enthusiasm of John Gould when he under-
took his celebrated expedition to Australia in 1837, to
study for himself the birds and mammals of that wonderful
Continent. If only for its Mound-builders and Bower-
builders the country would be remarkable, but in every
group of birds Australia possesses some extraordinary
forms which differ from those of other districts of the globe,
although some of them extend to the Papuan sub-region.
Thus we have the great Frog-mouths (Podargz), representa-
tives of our Nightjars, but differing from the latter in their
nesting-habits, as they construct a nest of sticks on the
branches of trees, instead of laying their eggs on the bare
ground. The Giant Kingfishers (Dacelo) likewise belong to
the Australian Region, and among Passerine birds we find
Diamond-birds (Pardalotus), Crow-shrikes (Stvepera), Robin-
Flycatchers (Petreca), Lyre-birds (dZenura), Superb
Warblers (Malurus), Striped Warblers (Amy¢zs), Emu-
tailed Warblers (S¢zpz¢urus), Bristle-Birds (Sphenura), Scrub
Birds (Aérichornis), Australian Leaf-Warblers (Serzcornis
and Acanthiza),and many other peculiar genera of Grass-
Birds too numerous to mention in a little work like the
present. An abundance of Honey-suckers (AZeliphagide)
is another feature of the Australian Region, and the
Weaver-Finches (P/ocezdg) are plentifully represented, but
none of its inhabitants are more remarkable than the
Bower-birds.
Of these there are several genera, the members of which
erect playing-grounds, excepting the Cat-birds (4/uredus),
which, as yet, have not been found to do so. The nest of
one of these species, the Queensland Cat-bird (4/uredus
Nest of the Queensland Car-bird (4 luredus maculosus).
(From a photograph by Mr. A. J. North.)
The Cat-bird 129
maculosus), has been discovered during the last few years,
and the accompanying picture has been drawn from a
photograph which was sent to me by Mr. A. J. North, the
Curator of Ornithology in the Australian Museum. It will
thus be seen that these Cat-birds build a nest very much
like that of an English Jay. The one in question was
found by Messrs. Cairns and Grant in the Bellenden-Ker
Range in Queensland. It was placed in the fork of a
sapling about seven feet from the ground, and was a neat
bowl-shaped structure, composed of long twigs and leaves
of a 7ristanza, lined inside with twigs and the dried wiry
stems of a climbing plant. On the outside several nearly
perfect leaves of the 7rdstanza were worked in, and partially
obscured one side of the nest. The nests of the Satin
Bower-bird (Ptlonorhynchus violaceus), Regent-bird (Serz-
culus melinus), and Spotted Bower-bird (Chlamydodera
maculata), have also been discovered, and they are similar
in structure to that of the Cat-bird here figured. The eggs
are of a reddish buff or stone-colour, and resemble in tint
those of the Birds of Paradise and Rifle-birds, to which the
Bower-builders are so nearly allied that many ornithologists
consider them to belong to the same family.
The Satin Bower-bird is the best known of these feathered
architects, especially in this country, where, even in confine-
ment in the Zoological Gardens, the birds construct their
arbours of sticks. The male of the Satin Bower-bird
(p. 117) is glossy black, and the female green.
The accompanying photograph illustrates the bower of
P. violaceus, and has been photographed by Mr. A. J.
North. It shows a bower found near the Jerulan Caves in
New South Wales in October 1898. How that grand old
naturalist, John Gould, would have revelled in these faithful
pictures of the haunts of his beloved Australian birds!
In his collecting days there was no photography to aid
him in portraying his jungle-pictures, and his coloured
K
130 Wonders of the Bird World
illustrations of the ‘Birds of Australia’ were painted by
his devoted wife, who accompanied him on his voyage of
discovery.
It was the sight of one of these bowers in the Sydney
Museum that first stimulated Gould to search for them
himself, with the result that he discovered several in the
The Bower of the Satin Bower-bird (Pislonorhynchus violaceus).
(From a photograph by Mr. A. J. North.)
cedar-brushes of the Liverpool Range, where they were
built in the most retired part of the forest, under the shelter
of the branches of the overhanging trees. The construction
of a bower has been minutely described by Gould, and his
account cannot be improved upon. First of all there is a
base or platform somewhat convex in shape, composed of
firmly interwoven sticks, and on this platform the bower
The Bower-birds 131
itself is built. It consists of sticks and twigs, the latter
of a more slender and flexible description, with their bases
firmly interwoven into the platform, but with the tips
bent inwards so as nearly to mect at the top. The forks
of the twigs are always arranged so as to turn outwards,
and thus a clear passage is made down the centre of the
arbour, without offering any interference to the gambols of
the bird. The female assists a little in the construction of
the bower, but the male is the principal performer, and in
his courtship to the lady, as detailed by that excellent
observer, the late F. Strange, the cock bird becomes greatly
agitated, chases her about, seizes a bright feather or large
leaf in his bill, utters a curious kind of note, sets all his
feathers erect, runs round the bower, and becomes so
excited that his eyes appear ready to start from his head,
while he continues opening first one wing and then the
other, uttering a low whistling note, and, like the Domestic
Cock, appears to be picking up something from the ground.
The bower, of which Mr. North has sent the photograph,
is described by him as being built on a platform of sticks
and twigs about three inches in thickness, the bower being
composed entirely of thin twigs slightly arched, some of
them meeting and crossing each other. One of the peculiar
features connected with the construction of the bower is its
decoration, in which the builders indulge a curious fancy,
Bright feathers and dead leaves forma principal element in
the adornment of their playing-ground, but far beyond
these in worth appear to be the bleached bones of animals
and shells, which the male evidently thinks likely to be
of the highest attraction to the female. With these the
entrance to the arbour is plentifully strewn, and Mr. North’s
photograph shows the Golgotha-like appearance. In this
case, he says, there were “twelve pieces of bone of a small
Wallaby (consisting of portions of the skull, ear-bones,
lumbar vertebrz, and small bones of the fect), three pieces
190 Wonders of the Bird World
of moss, a spray of Acacéa blossom, some small seed-conés
of an Eucalyptus, the egg-bag of a spider, six specimens of
a land-shell, which Mr. Charles Hedley informs me is an
unnamed and remarkably keeled and depressed variety of
Thersites gulosa of Gould, and one specimen of Helicarton
verreauxi.’ Gould also mentions the partiality for bright
Parrots’ feathers which the Satin-birds evince ; and their
Double-arched Bower of the Spotted Bower-bird (Chlamydodera maculata),
(From a sketch by Mr. A. J. North.)
propensity for appropriating any small article is so well
known to the natives that they at once search the bowers
in the neighbourhood for anything that is missing.
All the species of Spotted Bower-birds (Chlamydodera)
are expert architects, but instead of making a platform of
sticks, they make a trench on either side, and plant their
sticks in it so as to make anarched bower. Large numbers
of shells are used in their decoration, and the late Sir
George Grey narrates that he found some of the arbours of
(azis peanqeu Jo sdeqienb-aaiy yp) “(972 SNINIMNAIS) parq-quasay ay
The Spotted Bower-bird ac
the Large Spotted Bower-bird (Chlamydodera guttata) at
some miles’ distance from the sea-shore, and yet the birds
had decorated their playing-ground with sea-shells and other
marine doris which they must have transported all the way.
A little while ago Mr. A. J. North sent me a sketch of a
curious bower made by the Spotted Bower-bird (C. maculata),
in which the curve of the arched twigs had been continued
above and formed into a second arch. The lower bower
measured about two feet, the one on the top (which was in
the centre) one foot. There was the usual complement
of bones, also a few of Eley’s cartridge-cases.
The run of the Spotted Bower-bird is longer than that
of the Satin-bird, as can be seen by any one examining
our specimens in the Natural History Museum. Gould
describes the arbours of the former species as being out-
wardly built of twigs and beautifully lined with tall
grasses, so disposed that their heads nearly mect. The
decorations are very profuse, and consist of bivalve-shells,
crania of small mammalia and other bones bleached by
exposure to the rays of the sun, or from the camp-fires of
the natives. “Evident indications of high instinct,” he
says, “are manifest in the formation of the bower and in
its decoration, particularly in the manner in which the
.stones are placed within it, apparently to keep the grasses
with which it is lined fixed in their places: these stones
diverge from the mouth of the run on each side so as to
form little paths, while the immense collection of decorative
materials are placed in a heap before the entrance of the
avenue, the arrangement being the same at both ends. In
some of the larger bowers, which had evidently been
resorted to for many years, I have seen half a bushel of
bones, shells, etc., at each of the entrances. I frequently
found these structures at a considerable distance from the
rivers, from the borders of which they alone could have
procured the shells and small round pebbly stones, the
136 Wonders of the Bird World
collection and transportation of which must be a task of
great labour. I fully ascertained that these runs, like those
of the Satin Bower-bird, formed the rendezvous of many
individuals.”
One of the handsomest of the Bower-birds is the Regent-
bird (Serzculus melinius), which builds its bower in the thick
scrub much in the same way as Pézlonorhynchus violaceus,
and like that species, the structure is supported on a
platform of sticks, into the interlacements of which the
upright twigs are fixed. The Regent-bird evidently has
an eye for the artistic, as a bower found by Dr. E. Pierson
Ramsay was filled with land-shells belonging to five or six
species, while several kinds of berries of various colours
gave it a very pretty appearance ; besides these there were
several newly-picked leaves and young shoots of a pinkish
tint. Another observer states that he once found a bower
of the Regent-bird in a secluded place in the scrub, and so
concealed by small shrubs that he had to crouch on his
hands and knees to get to it. The ground in the immediate
vicinity for about a foot and a half was swept clear of
leaves, and his attention was called to it by the actions of
the male bird which was playing on the ground, jumping
up and down, puffing out its feathers, and rolling about in
a very odd manner. The nest made by the Regent-bird
is a flimsy structure of a few sticks. It has recently been
described by Mr. A. J. Campbell, a well-known Australian
Oologist, as of such a loose nature—merely a few twigs
forming a flat shelf about five inches across—that it fell to
pieces on removal from the tree, and it was wonderful how
the eggs retained their position in it.
Still more remarkable is the bower made by the Golden
Bower-bird (Prionodura newtoniana), a species which
frequents the ‘Bellenden Ker-range in Queensland, where °
it was discovered in 1883 by Mr. Kendal Broadbent. At
first only the female bird, which is of a very dull olive-
Cuesag ‘aq, Aq Sutmvip ayy worg) “(wpvu.cour sutcotyguep) pllq-aMog I2UAapiey ay} Jo Inoqiy
The Golden Bower-bird 139
brown colour, was known, but the male was shortly after-
wards procured by Mr. Meston, and proved to be a very
beautiful golden-coloured bird with a broad: crest of the
same colour on the head. This Bower-Bird inhabits the
mountains from 4000 to 5000 feet elevation, and the
above-named naturalists state that, like other members of
this Family, it has a wonderful imitative faculty, and is as
great an adept at mimicry as the Lyre-bird. Commencing
by croaking like a Tree-frog, the bird proceeds to give
vent to a low, soft, musical, pathetic whistle, to be followed
immediately by an astonishing imitation of apparently all
the birds in the scrub. But it is in the construction of its
bower that the Prionodura stands alone among its
Australian fellows, for it builds an arbour up to six and
eight feet in height, which must be the work of many
seasons and probably of many individuals, for it is stated
that birds of both sexes and all ages, both old and young,
use the playground. The bower is generally built between
two small trees, about four or five feet apart, and is con-
structed of small twigs and sticks. A pyramid of sticks
is piled against each tree, and these are connected by an
arch-shaped causeway of stems of climbing plants, both
the pyramids and the arch-way being decorated with white
moss and clusters of green fruit resembling wild grapes.
Not content with raising this great bower, the birds find
further scope for their architectural instincts in building a
number of subsidiary dwarf hut-like structures, which are
made by bending towards each other strong stems of
standing grass and capping them with a horizontal thatch
of light twigs. These little huts Mr. Broadbent calls
‘sunyahs,” and he says that he has found five of them in a
space ten feet in diameter, so that they give the spot
exactly the appearance of a miniature black’s camp. In
and out of the “gunyahs,” and from one to the other, the
birds pursue each other to their hearts’ content.
140 Wonders of the Bird World
My readers will not fail to have noticed the account of
the extraordinary pyramid of sticks which the Pyrzonodura
is found raising against the trees which support the bower.
This feature in arbour-building is still more strikingly
illustrated in the play-ground which the Gardener-bird
(Amblyornis inornata) of New Guinea erects for its
delectation and amusement. The home of this little bird
isin the great mountain ranges of that wonderful island,
and the discovery of its bower or playing-ground is due to
the great Italian naturalist, Dr. Beccari, who says that the
natives call it Tukan Kobon, which means “a gardener.”
Another name they give it is “ Buruk Gusra,” or ‘“ Master
Bird,” as it is such a master of the songs and screamings of
numerous birds, that it drove Beccari’s hunters to despair,
so frequently were they deceived by the imitations of the
Amblyornis. It is a somewhat curious coincidence that,
like the Golden Bower-bird, the Asmdblyornis was described
originally from a dull-coloured female specimen, and
received the somewhat inappropriate name of zxornata.
For twenty years none but females or immature birds were
received by museums, and it was only quite recently that
the male was discovered, and he was then found to have
an enormous crest of brilliant orange, so that instead of
being “unadorned,” as the name zzornata would imply,
he possesses a very striking and beautiful decoration in the
form and colour of his top-knot.
The playing-ground of the Gardener Bower-bird is
certainly one of the wonders of the world. Dr. Beccari’s
account of its discovery must be given in his own words
—“I had just killed a small new species of Marsupial,
Phascogale dorsalis, which balanced itself on the stem of a
great tree like a Squirrel; and turning round, I suddenly
stood before a most remarkable specimen of the industry
of an animal. It was a hut or bower close to a small
meadow, enamelled with flowers. The whole was on a
The Gardener Bower-bird 141
diminutive scale. I immediately recognized the famous
‘nests’ described by the hunters of Bruijn, but I did not
then suspect that they had anything to do with the con-
structions of the Bower-builders. After well observing the
whole, I gave strict orders to my hunters not to destroy the
little building. That, however, was an unnecessary caution,
since the Papuans take great care never to disturb these
nests or bowers, even if they are in the way. The birds
had evidently enjoyed the greatest quiet until we happened,
unfortunately for them, to come near them. We had
reached the height of about 4800 feet, and after half-an-
hour’s walk, we were at our journey’s end.
“The Bower—I now had full employment in the
preparation of my treasure, and I gave orders to my people
not to shoot many of the birds. The bower I had first
seen was the nearest to my halting-place, and one morning
I took colours, brushes, pencils, and gum, and went to the
spot, where I made the sketch which I now publish.
While I was there, neither host nor hostess were at home,
and I could not wait for them. My hunters saw them
going in and out, when they watched their movements to
shoot them. I could not ascertain whether this bower was
occupied by one pair, or by several pairs of birds, or whether
the sexes were in equal or unequal numbers—whether the
male alone was the builder, or whether the wife assisted in
the construction. I believe, however, that such a bower
lasts for several seasons.
“The Amblyornis selects a flat, even place around the
trunk of a small tree, about as thick and as high as a
medium-sized walking-stick. It begins by constructing at
the base of the tree a kind of cone, chiefly of moss, of the
size of a man’s hand. The trunk of the tree becomes the
central pillar, and the whole building is supported by it.
On the top of the central pillar twigs are then methodically
placed in a radiating manner resting on the ground,
142 Wonders of the Bird World
leaving an aperture for the entrance; thus is obtained a
conical and very regular hut. When the work is complete
many other branches are placed transversely in various ways,
so as to make the whole quite firm and impermeable to wet.
A circular gallery is left between the walls and the central
cone, the whole bower being about three feet in diameter.
All the stems used by the Asdylornzs are the thin stems of
an orchid (Dendrobium), an epiphyte forming large tufts on
the mossy branches of great trees, easily bent like straw,
and generally about twenty inches long. The stalks had
the leaves, which are small and straight, still fresh and
living on them, which leads me to the conclusion that this
plant was selected by the bird to prevent rotting and mould
in the building, since it keeps alive for a long time, as is so
often the case with epiphytical orchids.
“The refined sense of the bird is not satisfied with
building a hut. It is wonderful to find that it has the same
ideas as a man; that is to say, that what pleases the one
gratifies the other. The passion for flowers and gardens is
a sign of good taste and refinement. I discovered, how-
ever, that the inhabitants of Mount Arfak did not follow the
example of the Amdlyornis, for their houses were quite
inaccessible from dirt.
“ The Garden.—Now let me describe the garden of the
Ambylornis. Before the cottage there is a meadow of moss;
this is brought to the spot and kept free from grass, stones,
or anything which would offend the eye. On this green
turf flowers and fruit of bright colours are placed so as to
form a pretty little garden. The greater part of the
decoration is collected round the entrance to the arbour ;
and it would appear that the husband offers there his daily
gifts to his wife. The objects are very various, but always
of a vivid colour. There were some fruits of a Garcinza,
like a small-sized apple; others were the fruits of Gardenias
of a deep yellow colour in the interior. I saw also small
The Gardener Bower-bird 143
rosy fruits, probably of a scitamineous plant, and beautiful
rosy flowers of a splendid new Vaccinzum, now known as
Agapetes amblyornithidis. There were also fungi and
mottled insects placed on the turf. As soon as the objects
are faded, they are moved to the back of the hut.”
The range of the Gardener Bower-bird extends from
the Arfak Mountain in North-western New Guinea along
the ranges which form the backbone of that great island,
to Mount Victoria in the Owen Stanley mountains in south-
SECTION.
1. Formation of twigs. 3. Centre pole, with structure of twigs.
2. Moss. 4. Bower
(From a sketch by Sir William McGregor, published in the Queensland Blue Book for 1892.)
eastern New Guinea. In the Astrolabe Range of the
latter chain is found a second species of Gardener-bird,
known as Amblyornis subalaris. It is orange-crested like
the Arfak species, and has a similarly dull-coloured female.
Sir William McGregor, the Governor of British New
Guinea, discovered the bower of this bird, which seems to
be quite as wonderful a structure as that of the other
Gardener-bird. He describes it as follows—“ This bower
is built of twigs arranged in the shape of a shallow
basin, about three feet in diameter, the side being some six
inches higher than the centre. The whole of the basin is
144. Wonders of the Bird World
covered with a carpet of the greenest and most delicate
moss, which, as it is of a different kind from that growing
around on the ground or trees in the vicinity, led me to a
conjecture that it had been planted by the bird itself.
The surface is scrupulously cleared of all leaves, twigs, ete.
In the centre of the basin a small tree, without branches,
GrounD Ptan.
1. Centre pole. 3. Entrance.
2. Bower. 4. Twigs, beans, and beetles.
(From a sketch by Sir William McGregor, published in the Queensland Blue Book for 1892.)
and about two inches in diameter, is growing. Immediately
around this tree, and supported by it to the height of
about two feet, is erected a slight structure of small sticks
and twigs, placed horizontally, and crossing one another.
On the extreme outer edge of the basin a more substantial
collection of twigs had been built up, which was arched
above, so as to join the collection around the centre pole,
The Bower-birds 145
leaving a clear space beneath for the bird to pass through
in his gambols. The basin has two entrances leading into
it. They are four or five inches apart, and are formed by
a depression or gap in the outer rim. The bower is placed
immediately to the right of the entrances, and opposite to
the latter, on the highest part of the raised rim of the
basin, is collected a quantity of black sticks (four inches
or so in length), black beans, and the black wing-coverings
of large Coleoptera. Black is evidently the most attractive
colour to this bird.”
It will have been noticed that a thorough gradation in
style of architecture is afforded by the Bower-birds, from
the simpler structures of the Satin-bird, whose favourite
decorations are bleached bones and shells, with only an
occasional bright Parrot’s feather, to the more carefully
built arbours of the Spotted Bower-birds (Chlamydodera),
and thence to the elaborate playing-grounds of the
Gardener-birds, with their tent-like huts, their meadows
and floral decorations. I believe that many of the
Paradiseide, such as the Golden Birds of Paradise (Xantho-
melus), the Superb Birds of Paradise (Lophorhina), and
the Six-plumed Birds of Paradise (Pavotia) will ultimately
be found to make bowers, and have regular playing-
grounds.
CHAPTER VI
THE NESTING OF BIRDS
The Orders and Families of Birds, with their mode of nesting—
General remarks thereon—Guillemots and their eggs.
The Common Cuckoo (Cuculus canorus).
THE building of nests is almost entirely confined to the
members of the Class Aves, but is not so exclusively, as
many other animals construct nests, such as the Stickle-
back amongst Fish, the Harvest Mouse amongst the Mam-
mals, while resting-places or nests, as they are called, are
not unknown among the higher Apes, such as the Orangs
and Chimpanzees. Further instances could of course be
adduced, but in the construction of nests birds stand un-
rivalled for skill. It may be useful to pass rapidly in
review the Orders and Families of existing Birds, and to
note the peculiarity of their nesting habits, as follows—
SUB-CLASS RATITA.
Nest on the ground, a shallow pit. Incubation performed by
the male bird only.
146
Orders of Birds 147
SUB-CLASS CARINATA.
Order TinamiForMEs. (Tinamous.) Nest, a scantily-lined
hole in the ground. Eggs wonderfully glossy, and of a green,
blue, purple, or brown colour. Incubation performed by the
male.
Order GALLIFORMES. (Game-birds.)
Sub-Order Mercapopir. (Megapodes or Mound-builders.)
No nest. Eggs placed in a mound and left to hatch out
by themselves. Australasia.
Sub-Order Cracrs. (Curassows.) Nest in a tree. Two
white eggs. South America.
Sub-Order Puasiani. (Pheasants and Partridges.) Nest, a
roughly-lined depression in the ground. Eggs numerous,
uniform, or pitted and scrawled with black, occasionally
white. Cosmopolitan. Incubation by the female.
Sub-Order Hemipopi. (Hemipodes or Bustard-Quails.) No
nest. Eggs laid in a depression in the ground. Incubation
by the male. Southern Europe, Africa, and India.
Sub-Order Preroc.eTes. (Sand-Grouse.) No nest. Eggs
three, equally rounded at both ends, and double-spotted.
India, Africa, Central Asia to Southern Europe.
Order CotumBirorMes. (Pigeons.) Nest, a rude platform of
sticks on a branch, rarely in a cave or hole. Eggs two, pure white.
Cosmopolitan.
Order OpistHocoMIFORMES. (Hoatzins.) Nest of sticks in a
bush over water. Eggs four, buff, with spots and blotches of red-
dish-brown, like those of Rails. Northern South America,
Amazonia, Guiana, etc.
Order RaLLirorMES. (Rails.) Nest of sedge in reeds or by
the side of water. Eggs five to ten in number, stone-colour or
creamy buff, with brown spots and grey underlying dots. Cosmo-
politan.
Order PoDiciIPEDIDIFORMES. (Grebes.) Nest of reeds floating
on the water. Eggs white, from three to five in number.
Cosmopolitan.
Order CotyMBiForMES. (Divers.) No nest. Eggs two, dark
148 Wonders of the Bird World
olive-brown or clay-brown with indistinct black spots and grey
underlying ones ; laid on the ground close tothe water. Northern
Europe and Asia to North America.
Order SPHENISCIFORMES. (Penguins.) Nest, a rough structure
of grass ona rock or ina burrow. Eggs two, white. Southern Seas.
Order PROCELLARIIFORMES. (Petrels.) Nest, none, or a coarse
one of grass. Only one egg, white, generally laid in a hole or
under a rock. Cosmopolitan.
Order ALcIrorMES. (Auks.) Nest, none. One or two eggs laid
in cleft of rock or burrow, or on the bare shelf of a cliff. Northern
Seas.
Order LarirorMes. (Gulls.) A roughly-constructed nest ona
rock or in a marsh, occasionally in atree. Eggs, two or three in
number, double-spotted, usually clay-brown with black markings.
Cosmopolitan.
Order CHARADRIIFORMES.
Sub-Order AttacipEs. (Seed-Snipes.) Nest on the ground,
with scanty lining of grass. Eggs stone-colour, with brown
markings. South America.
Sub-Order Cutonipes. (Sheath-bills.) Nest in holes or
under rocks. Eggs buffy-white, with numerous purple
blotches. Southern Seas.
Sub-Order DRomapes. (Crab-Plovers.) Nest, none. One
white egg, laid at the end of a long tunnel in the sandy
shores of the Indian Ocean.
Sub-Order Cursorit. (Coursers.) Nest, a hollow in the
ground. Eggs two, double-spotted, buff, covered with
numerous blackish scribblings. Deserts of Africa and
India.
Sub-Order GLAREOL#. (Pratincoles.) Nest and eggs as in
the Coursers, but the egg so densely scribbled over as to
hide the ground-colour. South Europe, Africa, India,
Australia.
Sub-Order Parr#. (Jacanas.) Nest of weeds and grass,
floating in the water. Eggs pear-shaped, numerous, uni-
form olive-brown or scrawled with black lines. Africa,
India, Australia, South America.
Orders of Birds 149
Sub-Order CHarapru. (Plovers and Snipes.) Nest, usually
none, or a slightly-lined depression in the grass. Eggs
four, pear-shaped, laid point to point, double-spotted, clay-
coloured, more or less marked with black spots or lines.
Cosmopolitan.
Sub-Order CEpicnemi. (Stone-Plovers or Thick-knees.)
Nest none. Eggs two, stone-colour, spotted or lined with
black. Entire Old World. South America.
Sub-Order Oripes. (Bustards.) Nest none, or a scantily-lined
depression in the ground. Eggs two to four, double-
spotted, olive with a little shading of brown or grey spots.
Africa, Southern and Central Europe, to Central Asia, India.
Order GRUIFORMES.
Sub-Order GRues. (Cranes.) Nest on the ground in a
marsh. Eggs two or three, double-spotted, brown with
obscure reddish or grey spots. Cosmopolitan. (Absent
in South America.)
Sub-Order Arami. (Limpkins.) Nest of rushes in a marsh.
Eggs numerous, double-spotted, white with pale brown
and purple spots. Southern United States to South
America.
Sub-Order RuHINOCHETiDEs. (Kagus.) Nest unknown.
Eggs reddish-buff, marked with brown and grey. New
Caledonia.
Sub-Order Mesitipes. (Madagascar Kagus.) Nest and
eggs unknown. Madagascar.
Sub-Order EurypyG#. (Sun-Bitterns.) Nest of sticks in
trees. Eggs two, greyish with rufous spots. South
America.
Sub-Order Psopuie. (Trumpeters.) Nest on the ground.
Eggs white. South America.
Sub-Order DicHoLopHi. (Seriamas.) Nest in a low bush.
Eggs two, white with rufous spots. South America.
Order ARDEIFORMES. (Herons, Storks, and Ibises.)
Sub-Order ARDE®. (Herons.) Nest of sticks in a tree or
reed-bed. Eggs three to nine in number, blue or white,
Cosmopolitan.
150 Wonders of the Bird World
Sub-Order Ciconu. (Storks.) Nest of sticks in a tree or
reed-bed. Eggs three to five in number, white.
Sub-Order BALANICIPITIDES. (Shoe-bills.) Nest in reeds,
made of sedges. Eggs chalky-white or bluish-white. N.E.
Africa.
Sub-Order Scopr. (Hammer-heads.) Nest of sticks, very
large, with separate chambers. Eggs three to five, white.
Africa.
Sub-Order PLaTaLE#&. (Spoonbills and Ibises.) Nest of
sticks in reeds or on trees. Eggs blue or bluish-green, or
white, spotted with reddish-brown. Cosmopolitan.
Order PHENICOPTERIFORMES. (Flamingoes.) Nest of mud.
A single, chalky-white egg. South Europe, Africa, India,
America.
Order ANSERIFORMES. (Swimming-Birds.)
Sub-Order ANSERES. (Swans, Geese, and Ducks.) Nest, a
depression in the ground, lined with down from the bird’s
breast, or a large nest of moss or sticks and rushes. Eggs
numerous, from six to twelve, uniform olive, greenish or
white. Cosmopolitan.
Sub-Order PALAMEDE. (Screamers.) Nest of rushes, in a
marsh. Eggs six, white. South America.
Order PELECANIVORMES. (Pelican-like Birds.)
Sub-Order PHaETHoNTES. (Tropic-birds.) No nest. One
egg only, laid in the hole of a rock, white, with mottlings
of reddish-brown. Tropical Seas.
Sub-Order SuL&. (Gannets.) Nest of grass or sea-weed on a
rock. One egg only, white with a chalky covering. Cos-
mopolitan.
Sub-Order PHALACROCORACES. (Cormorants and Darters.)
Nest of sticks or sea-weed in a rock, or in reed-beds or trees.
Eggs two to four in number, bluish or green with a chalky
covering. Cosmopolitan.
Sub-Order PELEcANI. (Pelicans.) Nest of sticks or rushes,
in trees or on the ground. Only one egg, white with
a chalky covering. ‘Temperate_and Tropical regions of
both Hemispheres.
Orders of Birds 151
Sub-Order Frecati. (Frigate-Birds) Nest of sticks on
rocks, trees, or bushes. Only one white egg. Tropical
Seas.
Order CATHARTIDIFORMES. (American Vultures.) Nest on
rock or on the ground. Egg white, or with a few spots. North
and South America.
Order AccIPITRIFORMES. (Birds of Prey.)
Sub-Order SERPENTARIL. (Secretary-Birds.) Nest of sticks
in bush or tree. Eggs two, white, with rusty brown
smudges. Africa.
Sub-Order AccipPiTREs. (Vultures, Hawks, Eagles, etc.)
Nest of sticks, on rocks or trees, or on the ground in
marshes. Eggs variously coloured, from plain white to
the richest rufous. Cosmopolitan.
Sub-Order Panpiones. (Ospreys.) Nest large, of sticks,
on trees or ruins. Eggs three or four, richly coloured,
mostly rufous. Cosmopolitan.
Order Stricges. (Owls.) Nest, none, in hole of tree or ground,
or that of some other bird in a tree. Eggs from four to nine,
white. Cosmopolitan.
Order PsitTaciFoRMEs. (Parrots.) Nest, none, in hole of
tree. Eggs two to four, white.
Order CoRACHFORMES. (Picarian Birds.)
Sub-Order STEATORNITHES. (Oil-birds.) Nest, a hard mud-like
structure, in a-cave. Eggs four, white. South America.
Sub-Order Poparci. (Frog-mouths.) Nest of sticks etc.,
in a tree. Eggs two, white. Australasia and Indo-
Malayan Region.
Sub-Order Leprosomati. (Kirombos.) Nest of rushes in
the hole of a tree. Egg white. Madagascar.
Sub-Order Coracr®. (Rollers.) Nest of a few grasses in
the hole of atree. Eggs four to five, white. Old World;
generally distributed.
Sub-Order Hatcyones. (Kingfishers.) Nest, none ; ora rough
heap of fish-bones at the end of a tunnel excavated by
the birds themselves ; sometimes in ant-hills, or in holes
of trees, Eggs from four to seven, white. Cosmopolitan,
152. Wonders of the Bird World
Sub-Order Bucerotes. (Hornbills.) Nest, none. Eggs
two or three in number, white, laid in hole of tree, in
which the female is imprisoned. Africa, India, Indo-
Malayan Region.
Sub-Order Upup#. (Hoopoes.) Nest, none, or scantily
lined with a little grass, in a hole. Eggs from five to
seven, light olive-brown, bluish, or greenish-white. Europe
and Asia, Africa.
Sub-Order Meroprs. (Bee-Eaters.) Nest, none. Eggs
three to seven, white, laid in a chamber at the end of a
long tunnel hollowed by the birds themselves. South
Europe to Central Asia, Africa, India, Australasian
Region.
Sub-Order Momoti. (Motmots.) Nest, none. Eggs four,
laid in a chamber at the end of a tunnel hollowed out by
the birds themselves. South America.
Sub-Order Topi. (Todies.) Nest, none. Eggs four, white,
laid in a chamber at the end of a tunnel made by the birds
themselves. West India Islands.
Sub-Order Caprimu.cr. (Nightjars.) Nest, none. Eggs
generally two, white, mottled with lines and scribblings,
laid on the ground. Cosmopolitan.
Sub-Order Cypsett. (Swifts.) Nest of various construction,
cemented by the birds’ own saliva.